


Two for Two

by SpaceShark



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Gen, Implied Sexual Content, Mild Smut, Near Death Experiences
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:14:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 29,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26260222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpaceShark/pseuds/SpaceShark
Summary: Cato is a member of one of District 2's most politically connected families. Clove is an orphan thief turned Career academy killer. Not only do they have a thing for each other, they just so happen to be participating in the same Hunger Games together, for better or worse. But they do compliment each other well.Segments of an AU where the District 2 tributes are the "star crossed lovers" that win the 74th Hunger Games and help spark a revolt.
Relationships: Cato/Clove (Hunger Games), Katniss Everdeen/Peeta Mellark
Comments: 27
Kudos: 26





	1. A Chance Encounter

He was ten when they first met. By fate.

It was the end of another training day. The academy students were housed on the other side of the town – something devised by a former headmaster to ensure the students were suited to walking long distances. They’d need it if they wanted to run, leap, lounge, or ultimately kill. Cato and his friends were walking down a street when it happened.

Out of seemingly nowhere – a flash, and then the lunchbox with his leftovers gone in an instant. A small, dark figure could be seen whizzing away in the nearest alley.

“The hell was that?” asked one of his friends before Cato immediately ran off after the unknown thief, determined to grab whoever it was and dole out punishment as only an angry ten year old training for the Hunger Games could. His mind instantly went into _hunting_ mode.

He made a few twists and turns in dark alleys, and soon found himself facing a dead end. But whoever it was wouldn’t get very far beyond a trash dumpster and a high wooden fence.

Suddenly, something went flying past his head. He barely was able to duck before a kitchen knife of sorts slammed into the fence behind him, several inches in. He took a brief glance at the utensil turned weapon before taking a look at who threw it at him.

It was a girl holding his lunchbox, probably a couple of years younger than him at most. She was small, pale, dark haired. She had a look in her eyes that warned to back off, but still somehow conveyed basic fear. The fear of not wanting to die.

So basically the opposite of him: big for his age, blonde, and menacing. He took the knife and began walking up to her.

His mentors and trainers would’ve told him to not hold back. Giver her a good thrashing for standing in your way. Survival of the fittest and all that. But there was something to her that made him almost… sympathetic. She looked almost starved, desperate enough to steal from a future Career tribute.

She also threw that knife pretty damn well. Better than a lot of folks at the academy. If he hadn’t reacted so quickly, he’d probably have a nasty scar on his cheek – or worse.

Maybe she could be put to use somehow. An idea started brewing in his head.

He stopped scowling and walked slowly. “Give me back the lunchbox,” he told her, as an order but more gently than usual. And even that seemed to startle her for a second.

But she saw that it was lost, and tossed him his leftovers while she leaned against the dumpster, sulking. Another day she’d go hungry – and probably spend another round being manhandled by Peacekeepers before being tossed in another District 2 town to beg, barter, and steal.

“You look hungry,” Cato said, in a matter of fact voice. “What’s your name?”

“Clove, just Clove.”

“Well, Clove, if you like I’ll get you something to eat. Better than the half eaten ham sandwich that’s in this lunchbox. And after that, there’s some people that you should have a talk with.”

It was only then that she realized that he was wearing a training uniform from the academy. Little wonder he was able to catch up to her.

Her mouth grinned.

\---

She feasted that night. Or, feasted as much as a former street rat could in an hour. As he learned, she’d been on the streets for a while, her parents having died in an accident when she was very young. She didn’t go into details, but he didn’t need to hear them.

She was good with a knife, and that was what mattered to him in that moment.

Convincing his parents to get the academy to accept her was the hard part. “They can’t just take in everyone, Cato,” said his father, a District 2 bigwig who’d secured a place at the Career academy for his most promising son.

“She threw a knife better than anyone I’ve trained with. If they let her show off, I think they’ll _want_ her to join me and the others.”

Not wanting to get an argument just before his bedtime, Cato’s father sighed and simply said, “I hope you’re right.”

But he was. The next day, the faces of all the trainers went from smug amusement and snickers to wide eyes and unexpected shock. One bullseye after another, until the headmaster had enough and told Cato and Clove that they had room for one more.

She said a silent thanks with a nod to the much taller boy, possibly her first friend in her life, as she started to smile more and gleefully walked to the next part of the academy tour.

Cato thought to himself that he’d be seeing a lot more of her in the future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First time writing in this fandom, so I imagine a lot of things may be OOC or not very canon, but it's an AU after all. Even if that AU doesn't change all that much in the grand scheme of things.
> 
> I have to credit passionesque for sparking some inspiration in me to start writing this. Her Cato/Clove AU story is very, very good. I'm probably going to treat these drabbles as writing exercises: can I make two minor baddies more multidimensional and intriguing? Only one way to find out.
> 
> Do let me know if you like it or want to see more!


	2. Bonding Experiences

The District 2 Career academy wasn’t just for preparing tributes for the Hunger Games. After all, not everyone could volunteer each year. Instead, it was designed with the idea of producing loyal lapdogs for Panem. Peacekeeper officers, high ranking bureaucrats, and mining overseers were also trained here for the good of the nation.

But that was not the goal of Cato and Clove. No, they were trained and reared for the games.

Cato was an obvious choice. He was strong, he was good looking, he was ruthless. The perfect combination for a future Victor. His trainers put him through the meat grinder, giving him regular regimens of push ups, laps around the track, martial arts classes, and weapons training. Always weapons. Swords, spears, axes – he learned them all.

He wasn’t as good as knives as Clove was, though.

Though she was made to endure everything he had, she thrived at the knife lessons. Skinning, stabbing, throwing – all of those things almost seemed like second hand nature to her. It was her “weapon” of choice on the streets, and it was her weapon of choice in the academy. Not a day went by without her throwing some dagger or blade into a wooden target or ballistics gel torso.

She was taught how to use all the other melee weapons, of course, but the knives would be her first choice if and when she was thrown into the arena with a cornucopia of temptations.

Over the years, a friendship grew and was nurtured by their shared trials and training. They’d chat for nearly an hour afterwards, when making the trip home to their quarters, going over this technique or that mock fight. Clove found that talking to him helped her worry less. He was the one that got her in here, after all. He must’ve seen something in her to say she earned her spot.

As for Cato, he like Clove’s brutal honestly and bluntness at times. Many of the other girls at the academy ogled over him. But they fed him white lies and endless flattery. Clove simply told him “you sucked at that” or “maybe try this next time, dummy” and went into detail about what was on her mind. She was an open book with him.

“You need to teach me how to knife throw one of these days,” he said to her one day when he was sixteen, making their daily walk back home.

“Do the trainers not cover that? They have a set of knives out most years in the games.”

“They do, but you throw those damn things better than all the other students and even better than a few of the trainers.”

“That’s because they all specialize, dummy. Not everyone can be good with everything.”

“All the more reason to ask for knife lessons from you and not, say, Numerian or Drusilla,” he replied, referring to a pair of their friends that, despite their hard work, simply weren’t cut out for small, sharp blades. They’d make fine Peacekeepers one day.

“Meet me the last thirty minutes before we’re dismissed tomorrow,” Clove suggested, before squeezing his arm – much larger than hers – and they went their separate ways for the afternoon and evening.

* * *

The plans for that were derailed, though.

It was almost the end of the day at the academy, when Cato noticed a fight breaking out. Fights were common at the academy, given the subject matter taught there and the personalities of the various students. This one was causing a commotion, though, and Cato barged between people to see who it was.

It was Clove and a boy Cato’s age named Alexios, wrestling with each other with apparently deadly intent. Despite her small size, Clove was doing her best to make the fight an uncertain one. “You throw another dirty punch like that, and I swear!” Alexios was yelling as loud as he could.

“What’s going on?” Cato asked Numerian, who was eating a snack and watching the fight like it was his entertainment for the day.

"Clove and Alexios got paired for Krav Maga practice today. Alexios gave her a nasty kick between the legs, and claimed it was an accident. Of course, with Alexios nothing is an accident. So she practically lunged at him, and the result is what you see now.”

The trainers would inevitably break up the fight, but not before some good old fashioned catharsis. But anyone could see that Alexios was winning – by a hair. Clove was literally biting and scratching any inch of skin she could find. Good thing she didn’t have a knife with her.

Cato thought it over – for two seconds. Then he walked up to them and pulled Alexios away, sending the other boy flying and landing on his back with a hard thud. “The fuck was that for?”

“Stay the fuck there,” Cato growled at him. Then his attention turned back to Clove. She was beaten up, but still managed to look decent to him at least. “Are you stupid?”

“He deserved it,” she replied with contempt.

“True, but you’re about to get yourself into a bunch of trouble.”

“If he’s punished too, I can take it.” Despite the strict regimen and occasionally heartless trainers, Clove still preferred academy life to being a street orphan.

When one of the trainers inevitably did come over and take both Alexios and Clove for discipline, he asked Cato what happened. Cato wasn’t sure whether the man was trying to praise him for breaking up the fight or viewing him as contemptible him for not letting nature take it’s natural course.

Cato didn’t care. He cared more about Clove more than one of many trainers and teachers the academy had walking it’s walls.

* * *

“So how bad was it?” asked Cato the next day, after academy hours were over and they had the archery range to themselves.

“An extra set of laps, half rations at lunch, and an additional hour of physical exercise and strain… for at least a month.” She shrugs her shoulders after listing it all out. “I can take it. They’re trying to break me, obviously.”

But she’s better than that. They’ve both known that for years. At least knives weren’t off the table.

“And Numerian?”

“Same punishment. They also forced us to apologize to the headmaster and shake hands. Talk about embarrassing… I’d rather not go over it, frankly.”

Cato changes the subject pretty quickly. “So, knives. You gonna show me how you got so damn good at them or what?”

“In time, meathead.” She picks up one of the small blades and flings it against a wooden mannequin, shaped to be about the size of a normal teenager. It hits in the chest, perhaps the lungs or heart. It doesn’t really matter as long as some vital organ is punctured. “Anything your trainers would say about a throw like that?”

He thinks for a moment. Knives were always her specialty, not his. He didn’t need them, not with his size and strength, but the more weapons master, the merrier.

“Posture,” he replies, imitating her arm arching back and flinging. “Hand-eye coordination, the fact that it’s a static target and not moving-”

She slaps him on the face. She’s the only one he allows to do something like that, because he knows she won’t mean it.

“Dummy. They have moving targets every other day. Bullseyes, slaps of rotten meat, these mannequins – that’s not what’s important.” And then she goes off to tell him what is important, and it’s a lot. It reminds Cato of basketball or baseball, sports popular in days gone bye. It was all about knowing where and when to strike, and that required practice. A lot more than the trainers generally provided, given their job of creating a tribute that was a jack of all trades with him.

It’s thirty minutes later when he finally has enough and insists on a break, to begin their long trek home. They talk about their day on the way, how much Alexios was a fucking jerk or how those knives were nothing compared to what Peacekeepers or the Games would have on them.

When their paths depart, she playfully pats his back and squeezes his arm before taking the turn to where she’s housed by the academy.

Cato liked to think that was the day he started to like her. As more than just a friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We don't get too terribly much of what Career academies look like, so I elaborated a little bit. I'm sure other writers have came up with similar ideas though. Next up will be Reaping Day for both of them.


	3. Reaping Day

Contrary to popular belief, Career tributes – at least the ones from District 2 – are not entirely volunteers. With only two spots open each year, it was inevitable that most would “graduate” from the academy without ever going to the Hunger Games. The decision of who would raise their hand and volunteer as tribute was left to drawing lots. Five boys, and five girls, the best of the best, would be entered and the trainers would draw names from a hat.

Cato being the male volunteer’s name drawn to volunteer wasn’t a big surprise to anyone. He was considered the best of his class and many would make small wagers in the days after. He suspected that his father may have pulled strings to ensure his name was drawn by the trainers, but didn’t make his suspicions out loud and simply celebrated with his friends that night.

In contrast, Clove’s name being drawn as a shock to most of the other girls. She was good, very good, but preferably she’d have been training at the academy until she was eighteen, Cato’s ago, before putting her name in the hat. But one of her trainers insisted that her knife skills alone were good enough to match with the best of the academy, and by sheer luck she was the name drawn for a volunteering. The other girls may have been pissed or jealous, but it was said and done, and all they could do was grumble and wait for a turn in the future.

It was also by sheer luck that both of their names were drawn for the same year. No one knew just how close they were except the two of them.

* * *

The “reapings” for District 2 are done at the Justice Building. It’s largely considered a formality by all involved, and the careers and their trainers are all in the front row. Cato winks at Clove briefly before his attention turns back to the stage with the escort, a very orange woman named Marcia. And everything about her is orange – copper hair that actually didn’t come from a bottle, orange eyeliner, orange lipstick, and a ridiculous orange dress and handbag. She looked very out of place compared to the no nonsense students, trainers, and Peacekeepers of District 2.

“Happy Hunger Games!” She announced. “Once again, I have the immense honor of selecting District 2’s tributes. So, volunteers?” This is one of the only places that this question can be asked and it goes over well with the crowd. “Let’s start with the girls, shall we?” She looks over to where Clove and the others are seated, on Cato’s right.

He’s wondering who it might be, when a familiar freckled pale face gets up with a beaming look and sheer confidence. “I volunteer!” she announces with life and almost joy. “I volunteer as tribute!” Cato watches as she makes her way to the stage and is introduced to everyone for see. “What’s your name, sweetie?”

“Clove Blackwell.”

 _Fuck_ , he thinks to himself. Out of all the people who could’ve been paired with him… stupid fucking luck. He knew that both of them would be sent to the Games, but in the same year? It should’ve been impossible. She should’ve been sent a later year, not now.

But he can’t back out either. If he doesn’t get up and volunteer as happily as Clove did, he’d have to watch as one of the other boys got up to take his place, while Cato would be immediately expelled from the academy and forced into the Peacekeepers, not as an officer and to one of the shithole districts like 11 or 12.

With no other options on the table, he remained stoic as Marcia asked the boys who wanted to volunteer to go alongside Clove to the Capital. “I volunteer too!” he yells as he makes his way up on the stage as well, doing everything in his power show no sign of weakness whatsoever. Emotions in the Games could get you killed.

He shakes hands with her and poses with Marcia, scowling as ever while his heart pounded a million miles a minute.

* * *

Later, they’re in a private room together. Cato pondered back and forth while Clove silently sits on a couch.

She was at a lost of words, as is he apparently. She thinks he’s a hair away from flying into one of his infamous rages that began one fight or another at the academy. “Well,” she began, “this fucking sucks.”

“Of course it fucking sucks. It means one of us will have to kill the other at the end of the games.”

They speak as if they’re going to be the last two tributes standing, the last two fighting for that coveted Victor title. Given how it’s actually happened a few times in the past, it’s not too surprising the trainers have been stressing that in their classes: _assume that the last person you’ll have to take out is someone else in this room. Always._

“At least if would be you. I wouldn’t trust any of the others to do it as quickly as you would, frankly.”

Cato scowls again. “Don’t fucking speak like that. Don’t even _think_ like that.”

“But it’s going to happen anyways.” She speaks with a perspective beyond her years. “Death isn’t what bothers me. I was close to death a lot before you found me in that alleyway. What I wouldn’t like… is for it to hurt a lot.” But she’s taken a lot of punishment at the academy.

He sat down next to her and puts his hands in his face, rubbing all the way down to his chin. “There has to be some other way…” he muses, almost in a state of denial.

She rubs his arm again. Over the years, that always got his attention. “At least we’ll be in it together. Some years, the District 2 tributes turn on each other early on. I won’t do that to you, as long as you’ll do the same for me?”

He looked her in the eye, down below him. He’s much bigger than her, after all.

“Of course, Clovey.” Then he did something that surprised her. He kisses her forehead. Maybe it’s the feeling of death in the air, or knowing that he won’t have to worry about the consequences of being rejected – if the feelings weren’t reciprocated, they’d just sort it out in the arena. Whatever it is, it emboldened him to let her know how he really felt in the most obvious way possible.

He leaned back afterwards, looking up at the ceiling as if he didn’t care anymore. He was going to kill a lot of people in the coming days, and that would be that.

What he didn’t expect was for her to kiss him back, on the cheek. He face is blushing red when she darts back, but his arm easily pulls her to him for a tight embrace on the couch together.

“Hmm,” he mutters, as they remain like that for some time. He twirled her dark locks in his hands, and she leaned into his chest, breathing slowly.

* * *

Later, when both of them have a chance to clear their emotional states, they get on the train to the capital with Marcia and get to know their mentors: Brutus and Enobaria, Both of them are big names at the academy, success stories the students are told to emulate, and Cato and Clove consider it an honor to be taken under their wings.

The two mentors go over the coming days with their two newest tributes. They don’t say too terribly much in the way of pointers and tips for the games since they know well that District 2 tributes are always among the last ones standing. “Your goal is to be the last two standing,” Enobaria tells them, repeating that old point of advice the academy gives to all it’s tributes going into the capital. “After that… sort it out among yourselves. Better at your hands than anyone else.” She bared her teeth, filed down into fangs.

Clove blinked. She’d told Cato just that back at the Justice Building. No surprises there really.

After a few more minutes of overview and tips, they went to go watch the other reapings from across the country. “The ones you want to keep an eye on are Districts 1 and 4,” Brutus advised. “They train their tributes just like we do, and you’ll want to ally with them for as long as you can. The rest probably won’t be anything special, but occasionally there’s one or two that’ll be worth bringing into the alliance.” He turned on a large screen in their main train car and began with District 1.

The mentors left while Cato and Clove watched as the District 1 tributes, no doubt rich kids trained at their own academy or special school, volunteered with ease and excitement. The girl, Glimmer, is a pretty, leggy blonde, while the boy, Marvel, has an air of smugness that rivals even most of the others at the District 2 academy. “She’s cute,” Cato muttered about Glimmer, before getting a fist to his arm by Clove.

Cato rolled his eyes. “Every girl that volunteers from 1 is hot. I think it’s on purpose.”

“To fuck sponsors?” Clove replied with a snort. Cato rolled his eyes and skipped ahead.

To their surprise, the District 4 tributes weren’t volunteers. The girl, one Marina Covington, didn’t look worried at all. Probably had training or a background of sorts that would allow her to do well, they agreed. But the District 4 boy looked scared when his name was drawn. “Oh well,” Cato remarked, and they laughed together. Not everyone was cut out for the Games.

The rest of the reapings were a breeze, until the last two Districts – 11 and 12. Normally the reapings are a death sentence for those districts, poor backwaters, but their tributes this year catch the eyes of the two District 2 tributes that were secretly in love.

The District 11 kids couldn’t be any more different. The boy’s name is Thresh, and he had to be some sort of farmhand or laborer, because he was big, possibly bigger than Cato. _We should_ _dump Boy 4 and invite him_ _to the alliance_ _instead_ , Clove thought to herself, sizing the dark skinned boy up as raw but untested strength. Cato nodded his head once as if in agreement, while this Thresh held hands with the girl tribute, a small girl named Rue. She probably wouldn't last two minutes in the Bloodbath.

Then there was District 12. Another small girl was reaped and being taken to the stage when another girl, taller with brown hair, started screeching something. Then they heard out what she was saying: “I volunteer as tribute!”

“A volunteer?” wondered Cato in disbelief.

They saw the brunette from 12 have a heart-to-heart with the girl that was originally reaped, and it was clear that the two were sisters. “How sweet. But talk about signing up for your own funeral,” said Clove with a smirk. She didn’t expect this girl to be any different from the tributes from the shithole districts. They’d all meet their maker before it was her and Cato to decide which one of them wanted to be put down for the sake of the other.

 _Katniss Everdeen_ , Clove murmured to herself. The girl from 12 that volunteered to die so that her sister might live.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope I'm not too OOC with them.


	4. Those who are about to die salute you

Bright. Colorful. Awe-inspiring. Decadent.

All of those words and more could describe the Capitol.

Cato had been here twice, with his father to conduct some sort of government business between District 2 and the Capitol bigwigs. As big as his father was at home, he was just one of many in the Capitol, the seat of all power in Panem. So seeing all the silly colors and crazy spectators wasn’t entirely shocking to him. He just smiled and gave a small wave as the train arrived at the station.

“Ridiculous,” muttered Clove under her breath, not bothering to greet the Capitol citizens.

“We’re better than them too,” Cato remarked. “Most of them spend half their lives wondering what hair color or piercing they should get next. But we need sponsors, and letting them treat us like celebrities is the best way to do it.”

Brutus and Enobaria nodded at this. They didn’t say anything like “he’s right, you know” to Clove because it was already painfully obvious to them.

A group of Peacekeepers escorts them out of the train and towards their first destination: living quarters for the next few days. The tributes from District 2 found them very spacious, clean rooms decorated with every color and shape possible, in every combination. Being from a district close to the Capitol, they had a few hours to kill and meet with the other Careers before the parade tonight. When the sun began setting is when they’d go down to meet their stylists and get situated for the pomp and circumstance. But for now, Cato decided to take a nap.

He wasn’t complaining when Clove snuggled in next to him, also exhausted by everything. Out in the games, they’d need to be apex predators and show no mercy. But here, in relative privacy again, they could embrace again and not be judged. After an hour, Cato was the first to wake up, and lightly shook Clove’s shoulder. “Wakey wakey, Clovey.”

“Ugh… am I in a dream or am I still in line for the Hunger Games?”

“Afraid so. C’mon, let’s go meet the tributes from Districts 1 and 4. Get to know them better before the parade.” _And to see if there’s anything we can extract from them that we can exploit once it’s just us and them fighting for the crown._

They headed down to a lobby area and saw Marvel and Glimmer first, chatting with each other like no one else was watching them. Their eyes widened at seeing their District 2 counterparts walk up to them. “Oh, hey, we were just about to go up and find you two!” exclaimed Glimmer with what Clove thought was an extremely fake tone of voice. “Glimmer, nice to meet you two in person.” Glimmer immediately began chatting with Cato, eyeing him up like a lion eyes up a zebra or antelope.

Clove briefly rolled her eyes. There was no way the District 1 girl was already trying to flirt with Cato. But those things happened. Love stories and endless flirtations would make potential sponsors go wild with amusement and entertain them better than just a regular hunt. She let it go and shook hands with Marvel. “You must be Marvel. I’m Clove, nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you too, Clove.” At least he wasn’t trying to be as cocky as he was on the reaping video. “So, what’s your specialty? Weapon, I mean.”

“Knives. I can throw them better than anyone else at my academy. They’re small and it’s easy to have a lot of them on you. What about yourself?”

“How cool! I prefer a spear. It’s very versatile, since you can use it in close quarters combat or throw it at your target.”

“So basically a knife, but with a big bulky handle.”

“That’s one way to put it.” They shared a laugh together. Clove thought to herself that maybe this one deserved a quick, painless kill when it was just the Careers duking it out at the end. The blondie trying feel up Cato… not so much. Her inner jealously wouldn’t let her go down easy on the battlefield.

The District 4 tributes arrived a few minutes later, with their mentor Finnick in tow. Soon, the six of them were all swapping stories while Fennick watched, talking weapons and tactics and joking about the District 12 girl. “Brave of her to volunteer for her sister, but foolish,” Marvel commented with a laugh.

“She might win a few sponsors by playing to their heartstrings,” suggested Marina. “But unless she can actually fight I wouldn’t worry about her too much.”

“I agree,” said Cato. His focus wasn’t on some nobody from 12, his focus was on how the kids from 1 and 4 would be as allies – and potential adversaries.

“So what do you think?” Clove asked him on their elevator ride back up to their room.

“Glimmer’s clearly trying to get in my pants, thinking it’ll help her during the games. Marvel seems decent enough as an ally. The District 4 boy isn’t worth putting into the alliance. Marina looks reasonably tough for someone who wasn’t a volunteer.” He paused to look her face to face. “And what did you think?”

“I think Glimmer should back the fuck off, but of course I can’t tell her that without…”

“Without revealing _t_ _hat_?”

“Yeah, about that… not a word of it to anyone else. Not blondie, not Brutus and Enobaria, not fucking Marcia.”

“Won’t argue with you on that. C’mon, let’s go prep for the parade.”

* * *

It was nightfall. At one end of the avenue of the parade, the tributes were all dressed and decked out ready to go. Clove adjusted her lopsided helmet, which was based on some sort of Greek/Viking design. There appeared to be two horns/feathers of some kind sticking out from it, that looked like the wings on the eagle from Panem’s flag.

“It’ll be done before you realize it,” Cato said to her, in an encouraging tone. “All we have to do is smile and look pretty.”

Clove snorted. The preparations for the parade had involved an array of showering, skin treatments, pedicures, makeup, hair styling, and a ton of other things she didn’t really give a real shit about. But the prep team had been very insistent, and it appeared Cato had be put through the same, or at least a male version of it. _He looks good. We look good._

They went over some last minute pointers from their stylists, a pair of siblings named Antigonus and Junia. Antigonus had a beard that was similar to Seneca Crane’s, (the only real difference being a light brown color), and he wore a bright purple vest and pants. His sister Junia struck Clove as looking like a circus clown, with white face makeup and cherry red lipstick. But other than that she looked normal, with shoulder length jet dirty blonde and a dark gray pantsuit. Clove had to admit they were the least crazed Capital citizens she and Cato had come across so far.

“Looking good to me,” said Antigonus with a nod of approval. “Both of you, I understand, are well versed in military history, so the symbolism of these costumes won’t be wasted on you two at least.”

Clove and Cato nodded together. One of the classes at the academy was studying the art of warfare, and all the tactics and strategy it entailed. Great ancient battles like Cannae and Thermopylae were second hand knowledge to the two of them.

Junia began going over the costumes again, probably because she liked talking about her handiwork. White tunics were covered with comfortable bronze colored tank tops designed to be form fitting and give off the appearance of ancient breastplates. Roman style belts, capes, and sandals completed the ancient Greco-Roman look, with the headdresses to top it all off. “I tried to base it off the goddess Nike,” said Junia, referring to the Greek personification of victory. “Since you two, of course, will be natural victors in the games.”

“Of course,” said Cato. They thanked their stylists, the only reasonable Capital residents they’d come across so far, and walked up to Marvel and Glimmer to chitchat again. “So what are you two supposed to be?” Clove asked.

“Venetian Renaissance,” Marvel said. “Made with the best from home.” And indeed, both Cato and Clove thought those outfits cost a small fortune. Marvel’s was more red in color and lined with some sort of dyed red fur, but Glimmer’s purple headdress, Clove thought to herself, was absolutely ridiculous. _No wonder their Careers are second place to us most of the time. They care more for their clothes than their skills._

“Someone’s looking handsome,” Glimmer said in her sultry voice to Cato, running a finger along his arm.

“Right back at you,” Cato replied, playing along to get on Glimmer’s good side. Clove would probably slap him once they were back on their floor, but for now he was looking to secure the alliance more than anything. “We’re dressed up as Greek gods. Of course Clove and I look good.”

Glimmer seemed about ready with a reply when an announcement was made that the parade was about to begin. “Here goes nothing,” Cato whispered to his partner in more ways than one, as they got on their chariot. The District 1 tributes went first in their self propelled chariot, followed shortly by District 2.

Both of them were completely unprepared for the sheer scale of it all. They seemed tiny, and yet the center of focus from all sides of colorful figures excited to see their entertainers for the next few weeks. They went through the motions, forcing smiles and waving to the masses, as a proud anthem that took inspiration from Rome and old America played.

And then… the unexpected happened.

Cato was the first to notice it. The large screens around the avenue, which had previously kept their focus on them and the District 1 kids, was now focused on the District 12 kids. And for good reason: their suits were on fire, but not so much that it would kill them. And they were holding raised hands triumphantly.

“Fire?” he mouthed silently to Clove as their chariot took it’s place in front of the President’s massive podium. She shook her head and her eyes went upwards, just like everyone else. Up there were the President’s inner circle, some representatives of the city’s most powerful families, and ambassadors from city states such as Edmonton, Montreal, and Chihuahua.

President Coriolanus Snow appeared, to Cato and Clove, an old man with an imposing, commanding voice, at least in previous national appearances. His long white hair and beard seemed odd for someone of such an advanced age, but compared to the people he ruled over, he was extremely normal looking. He quieted the crowds with a wave of his hands, and spoke: “Welcome, welcome! Tributes, we welcome you, and we salute your courage and your sacrifice.”

_Hail, Emperor_ _, those who are about to die salute you._

“And we wish you… Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favor.” Snow walked back into his palace as the crowds roared. Both Cato and Clove had stoic scowls on their faces as their chariot moved again, this time to a second prep area for them to go over the parade with their mentors and talk over what they’d learned in the last ten minutes.

“Not bad, not bad,” Enobaria said while Antigonus and Brutus nodded on in approval. “The kids from 12 may have stolen the spotlight, but that’s no fault of yours. Remember, this parade is just one way of gaining sponsors…”

But Cato wasn’t listening to her. He was staring off at Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mallark, going over their parade accomplishments with their own mentor, a drunk named Haymitch who’d survived the Second Quarter Quell by sheer luck. He gave them a stink eye, not looking away even when Katniss caught him staring like a predator watching prey from afar.

Because, in his mind, that was exactly what he was doing. District 12 wanted to be upstarts? They could die first in the Bloodbath.

* * *

That night, Clove couldn’t sleep. Maybe it was the sensory overload of the parade, or all the fancy food they’d been fed for dinner, or the thought of her own mortality. She hesitated a dozen times, then got up from her bed and walked down the hall to Cato’s bedroom.

She hesitated a dozen more times, then knocked lightly.

About half a minute later, the door opened. Cato stood there in just a pair of silky pajama pants. Clove eyed his torso, well muscled from years at the academy and with a small amount of hair.

“Couldn’t sleep either?” he asked, rubbing his eyes.

She nodded. “Mind if I come in?”

“Sure.” He stepped back to let her in. As she did, Clove put a hand on his arm.

“Might as well,” she said, the implication obvious.

His response was to move her arm so that their hands were holding each other’s.

* * *

They ended up making love for nearly an hour. When it was done, they collapsed on the bed together, and Clove fell asleep first, her head nuzzled in Cato’s chest as he lightly stroked her air.

As for Cato, he looked up at the dark ceiling and tried counting sheep. But it didn’t work.

Clove had been an enthusiastic bed partner, no surprise there. What he hadn’t expected was an overwhelming and almost primal _need_ , like she was still starving on the streets of District 2. He went along with it, and together they’d created a tough tenderness that made for burning passion and a strong mutual climax.

If their days as a secret couple were numbered, he thought to himself before he drifted off too, they may as well make the most of them.


	5. Training Days

The next morning, Cato and Clove woke up as if nothing had happened and headed to the Capitol’s training center for the tributes. It was high quality and all the weapons and obstacle courses were up to par with the academy back home, but the quality of the current occupants… not so much.

After planning times for the required sessions, they went straight to work with the weapons as if it was just another school day.

About an hour before the scheduled lunch, Cato was cutting up training dummies left and right with a sword, finding it little different than stabbing and slicing the slabs of rotten meat or even corpses of executed criminals the trainers back at the academy had provided for hours of practice. He notice Marina was pretty hand with an ax. “Was Johanna Mason your favorite Victor in previous games?”

“That too, but my family comes from a line of boat makers back home in District 4. We’d need to get our own wood for the boats, and…” She twirled the ax for a second. “I picked up a few things along the way.”

Cato nodded. “Good to know. Back to sparring, shall we?” It was good practice for him, and he began to think of ways to kill her in hand to hand combat when the Career alliance inevitably broke apart and it was every man for himself.

On the other end of the training center, by a firing range, Clove was busy throwing knives at a number of human shaped targets, going for the head or heart every time. She supposed that a throw to a lung by accident would work in a pinch, but an instant kill was what she was aiming for each and every time. For every missed throw, she threw five more instakills to make up for it.

Letting her arms rest for a moment, she turned to Glimmer and Marvel, who were practicing with arrows and spears respectively. “You are waaaay too good with those,” said Glimmer in her annoying tone of voice, referring to Clove’s knives. “Never was my thing, those little blades. I’m going to go for a bow and arrow set instead. Much easier.”

The numerous arrows down range that had missed the target completely told Clove a much different story. _Not only is she absolutely annoying, she can’t shoot arrows for shit. Maybe I should tell Cato to dump her from the alliance too. At least Marvel is as good as he said he was with spears._

Before lunch, she took a walk around to get a general idea of the competition, even though it wasn’t much to shake a stick at. The kids from 12 were largely practicing together, whether at the survival station or the obstacle courses. The girl from 5 reminded Clove of herself before she’d joined the academy, with an uncanny ability to get all those plants correctly identified and more jump in her gait than she thought. The boy from 11, Thresh, was sparring with Marina and Cato, his weapon of choice being a scythe modified to be a deadly tool.

“So what have you picked up so far?” she asked Cato as the two of them headed to the lunch hall half an hour later.

“Marina’s family is loggers of some sort in 4, that’s why she’s decent with an ax. Thresh appears to be a similar story, given his skill with a scythe. He didn’t say much but you could tell he was a farmhand, probably working in grain fields or cotton or some other plant that requires reaping tools. And you?”

“Marvel’s as good as his word with spears. Glimmer wants to use a bow and arrows, but she’s clearly not an expert.” She managed to bite her tongue at saying to dump Glimmer from the alliance, amazing herself. “And the girl from District 5 is one to watch out for. She’s more sly than she makes herself appear to be.”

“And what makes you say that?” he asked as he grabbed a pair of Peacekeeper MREs for them and sat at the nearest table to them.

“She reminds me of _me_. Who I was before you got me in the academy.” At that moment Glimmer and Marvel joined them, and Clove spoke no more on the fox faced girl, not wanting her past to be laid bare for the rich kids from 1. Glimmer tried to make small talk with Clove, but she largely kept what she could to herself, having no intention of letting this ditsy blonde eat up what was behind the freckles and dark, piercing eyes.

The rest of the afternoon was more of the same for Clove, but one incident did catch her attention. She was in line for the mandatory sword practice session when she heard a commotion going on nearby: “Jason, where’s my knife, huh?!” Cato was standing over the boy from 6.

“I didn’t touch your knife.”

“You took my knife, goddammit!” Cato began to get in the other boy’s face, snarling and yelling at him as if the knife in question was the most important thing in the world. Clove wasn’t exactly sure why Cato was so mad or whether it was worth picking a fight here and now, but she figured she could ask him about it later in the privacy of the bedroom. She watched as the trainers were unable to hold Cato back (since was bigger than most of them) and had to call a pair of Peacekeepers to restrain Cato, still hyperventilating and giving off his familiar stink eye.

“… you’re the first one I get, so watch your back, huh?!” It was under in a minute, but now everyone else knew something about Cato if they didn’t already: he was not to be fucked with without good cause.

“So Cato can kill with just about anything, and he bothers that kid about a damn knife?” Marvel wondered as he, Clove, and Glimmer worked on the range again an hour later. Glimmer seemed to be making progress with a bow, but not much. Clove had to suppress laughs when arrows missed their targets by a lot.

“He’s a Career, like us,” Glimmer replied, speaking about Cato like he was an Adonis specimen. “He was showing that kid his place, that’s all.” She let loose another arrow, this one striking the gut of the human shaped target she was aiming at. “Not exactly the heart, but that would definitely kill.”

It took Clove all of her willpower to not make some crude remark.

* * *

“What was that with 6 all about?” she asked Cato as they lay in bed together that night, arms around each other.

“Oh, nothing really. I was just fucking with him, that’s all. I have no idea who took that knife, he just happened to look weak.”

“Shouldn’t you be worried?” Clove asked him. “If it was in the games. Imagine if your weapon disappears and you have no idea who’s out there. What happens then?”

“Then I’d use my fists. We’re trained to use them, no?”

They laughed briefly as he kissed her again, their bodies stirring to go at each other a second time that night.

“You’re going to get yourself killed one day.”

“That’s what I’m here for, no?”

* * *

“I think we should recruit the boy from 11 right now,” Marvel suggested at lunch the next day. Glimmer, Clove, Marina, and Cato all nodded. Thresh had thrived in the combat exercises, despite having no combat experience from what they could tell.

“He’d have made a perfect Career,” Glimmer said. “Who wants to go… well, talk to him? I haven’t seen him speak to anyone outside of the girl from his district.” They saw that he was alone at the moment, Rue sitting with Fire Girl instead. Clove assumed that Fire Girl had a soft spot for the twelve year old, who was probably around the same age as that Primrose girl who should’ve been reaped.

“I’ll do it,” Cato replied, taking the lead as was expected from a leader. “Clove, come with me.” She could see Glimmer whisper something to Marvel as they got up, but tried to push it out of her head. Whatever gossip or petty little thing she was saying wouldn’t matter in a week.

Cato sat down at Thresh’s table. “So, Thresh, is it? I’m Cato and this is Clove. We’re forming an alliance with the tributes from 1 and the girl from 4, and we’d like for you to join us when the time comes.”

“Why?” asked Thresh. Cato found him straight to the point and blunt, as if he didn’t want to be here and definitely didn’t want other people in his face.

“Why? Because you’re strong, dude. I saw the way you used that sickle like it was second hand nature to you. We’d rather not fight that for as long as we can.” Clove nodded in agreement to her district partner and secret paramour.

Thresh ate from a bag of chips for a moment, thinking of something. Then he said, “Fine. But one condition.”

“Name it.” _Probably wouldn’t be anything to worry about,_ Cato thought.

“My district partner, Rue. She gets to join as well.”

Cato automatically shook his head. “Sorry, it’s just you. We can’t have any weak points, and frankly she’s probably not cut out for it.”

Thresh stared at Cato as if looks could kill. “Then I don’t join your group. Simple as that.”

Cato rolled his eyes, knowing he wasn’t going to be convinced to join them, and got up. “Alright pal, your loss.” They walked back to the Career table, where the others were watching them. “No luck?” Marina asked.

“No luck,” Cato said. “He wants his little friend to join him if we invited him. Of course, we can’t just allow every tribute into our alliance, can we?”

“She seems to be making friends with Fire Girl over there,” Glimmer mused, watching the small, dark skinned girl and Katniss getting along well.

“Let Fire Princess have the dead weight,” Marvel suggested. “Makes our job easier, no?”

No one disagreed with him on that. Clove did feel a little bad for the girl, this Rue, but it was the Hunger Games, after all. Plenty of twelve year olds had died over the years by bad luck, and plenty more would die in the years to come.

It was her job right now to try to avoid joining them. Which in her case, would mean Cato’s death, but she secretly hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

* * *

The afternoon went swimmingly for both of them. The only thing that didn’t seem ordinary was something Peeta did. He was working on a ropes course when the ropes turned upside down and the boy from 12 was sent falling on his back. Cato snickered at him from a distance, looking to Marvel and Glimmer for approval.

If there was one thing they could all agree on, it was that it was going to be one of _them_ that won this whole damn thing.

Fire Girl went down to Peeta and said something illegible to them, but Cato knew from the way that she glanced over at the Careers that she was telling Peeta about him and the others. Maybe something to the effect of “don’t let them get to you” or “show them that you’re not to be laughed at”. Didn’t matter to him anyways.

Then Peeta did that thing that surprised him. Fire Girl’s tribute partner went over to one of the metal weight balls, grabbed it, and tossed it against a spear rack, knocking the rack and a bunch of weapons over. It seemed like he was exhausted from doing so, but that sort of display caught the attention of the Gamemakers from their comfy perch.

Cato simply mused “not bad” to the District 1 tributes and went over to Clove. “Did you see that?”

“See what?”

“The boy from 12. Threw a weight ball with relative ease against the spear rack. I’m the only one who’s done that here so far, at the range, and I only did so to show I was actually capable of doing it.”

“Then it’s probably the same with him. He threw it against the rack to be loud and get attention. Just like what you did picking a fight with the boy from 6.”

He fumed. “That kid has no aggression in him, I can sense it. He’s not a real threat, same as Fire Girl. They’re banking on sponsors feeling sorry for them because of her sister.”

* * *

On the third day was their private sessions. Cato caught Glimmer winking at him before he went in and proceeded to do his thing. He cut up training dummies left and right, limbs and heads scattered over the plastic mats. He also beat up a few with his fists for good measure, to round himself out in front of the judges.

He used a few of the other weapons lying around, like the sickle and spears, but knew they weren’t his specialty. It was mostly to show he could kill with those too if it came down to it. His finishing act was to leave a sword embedded in the heart of the only intact dummy left in the room, and it earned him the applause of the judges and gamemakers above.

It was good to be one of the favorites.

“They all stood up to clap for me,” Cato whispered in Clove’s ear as she went up next. “No pressure.” She smirked as she could’ve sworn he lightly spanked her ass in that brief moment of privacy. No doubt a sign of what he wanted that night.

And she’d give it to him. But not before cutting someone or something up.

She spent most of her minutes knifing everything she could. The wooden targets, which didn’t have as many of Glimmer’s arrows as she thought they would. The fresh set of training dummies brought in and replaced after every tribute finished their private session.

For the finishing act, she decapitated a dummy with one of the knives, the biggest and meanest one that she could find on the rack. She imagined that it was Fire Girl, or the boy from 12, or any of the bullies from the academy or the mean people on the streets. All of them were condensed to one plastic shape resembling a human, and she took it all out in the session.

Seneca Crane gave her a curt nod as part of his applause as she gave a sarcastic bow and exited as deftly as she’d arrived. She hoped those fools knew that she and Cato were the best of the bunch, and believed they wouldn’t forget it anytime soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know if the ending was sloppy, but I hope it reads well enough.


	6. Scores and Interviews

“I confirmed it with Cashmere and Finnick earlier, while you two were in your sessions. Their tributes will work with you guys for as long as necessary.”

Cato and Clove nodded to Brutus as they took seats around the living room on their floor. Also there were Enobaria, Marcia, and Antigonus. Caesar Flickerman was about to announce the scores each tribute had received after the private sessions, and both of District 2’s tributes were utterly self confident in getting double digits.

District 1 went first, of course, and Marvel’s score was a nine. Cato nodded, as did Clove. They both knew Marvel’s skill with a spear was unmatched by anyone else in the competition. All in all, a decent Career tribute for their alliance.

Next was Glimmer, who got a score of eight, not atypical for a District 1 tribute but in Clove’s mind, the blonde didn’t deserve it. “Bullshit,” she blurted out loud. “She wasn’t as good with a bow as she thought she was. Probably spent half her session in Crane’s lap-”

Cato shook her arm with some force, but his eyes never left the screen, and he let a small smirk emerge on his mouth. The others in the room also did their best to suppress laughs.

Next up was Cato. A ten was not surprising at all, since that was what the best Careers got most years. Nevertheless, everyone in the room cheered and congratulated him, while Clove simply smirked back at him. “Nice job, meathead.”

“You’re up next,” was his only reply. But when she also got a ten, he playfully shook her around a bit, his nonverbal way of congratulating her. He’d have kissed her and taken her to bed to celebrate properly, but that could be saved for later.

The rest of the scores seemed to pass by more quickly than expected. The boy from 4 got a six and Marina got an eight, which Clove thought was probably more deserved than however Glimmer got her score. The girl from 5 getting a five seemed odd to her, given the redhead’s skill at just about everything except fighting. Maybe she’s not a threat after all, she mused as no one from 6 to 10 got anything higher than a six.

Once again, the tributes from 11 and 12 were of more interest than they should’ve been. Thresh getting a score of 10 was no surprise at all, thought Cato. That boy had a lot of raw strength, even if it was unrefined and unskilled. A challenge in the arena, yes, but he wouldn’t be able to take on multiple Careers at one time.

Rue got a seven, which was a surprise to Clove. “That’s only one point below Glimmer,” she pointed out to Cato after Caesar announced it.

“Only one point below Marina, too, you know.” He knew she was trying to stick it to Glimmer for flirting with him. _More protective than I thought she’d be._

Clove snorted as Caesar moved on to 12. Peeta got an eight, and they agreed that him throwing those metal weights had something to do with it. It was like Thresh, raw strength adding a few points, although in Thresh’s case it was a lot more.

But then the Katniss girl was given her score.

It was an eleven.

That should’ve been impossible. Only the most promising of Careers ever got an eleven.

“What the fuck?! The fucking Fire Girl got an ELEVEN?!” Cato roared, tossing an empty paper cup against the screen. He was about to do the same with a glass mug had Antigonus not stepped in. “Careful, that’s very expensive!”

“Fucking bullshit,” said Clove. “That’s not even possible. Maybe Glimmer wasn’t the only one between Crane’s legs this afternoon…”

“Language, dear!” yelled Marcia, not used to this kind of talk from teenagers, even though she’d been escorting the District 2 tributes for the games for years.

“Settle it at the Bloodbath,” Enobaria told Cato. “Both of you, make it a priority to kill her off the first day if you can. Make the gamemakers feel like idiots for thinking she could even have a fraction of a chance of beating either of you in a fair fight.”

Clove nodded as her hand gripped the arm of the chair so tight her knuckles went white for a second.

* * *

“This has got to the worst thing I’ve ever had to wear,” Clove whined as the elevator moved down towards where the interviews would be taking place. Junia and Enobaria had decided on a “cute but deadly” look for her, and had subjected her to another round of “beauty treatments”. And to top it all off, she’d been given a big orange dress to wear, not to mention the bird’s nest of a hairdo Junia insisted for her dark hair. _Probably Marcia’s doing, orange is her color this year apparently._

“Uh huh,” was Cato’s reply. He was dressed in a grayish blue blazer and pants, with the first button of the shirt underneath left unbuttoned. “Sex appeal and cockiness,” was what Junia had decided for him. “Many of them already think you’ll win the whole thing, we just need to round out the edges. Give them one more reason to shower you with whatever you’ll need once in the arena.”

“And my hair, ugh.” Clove adjusted one of the many pins. “The most ridiculous thing I’ve ever had done to it. Why can’t they just let us go do this shit in our training uniforms? Those are comfortable, at least.”

“The idea is to doll you up while shocking them with how deadly you are. And for what it’s worth, it’s not a bad look on you.”

She rolled her eyes. “Please, you’d say I look good if I wore nothing but a trash bag on me.”

“But would that be it?” Before she could reply, he had his mouth to her neck, kissing it. “Dammit Cato, please don’t give me a hickey before we’re on live TV.”

“I’m not, but I think you’d like it anyways.” He rubbed her shoulders until the elevator door opened, and they walked down a maze of runways and escalators to the prep area, getting in line behind Glimmer and Marvel. The blonde, to Clove’s amazement, had the audacity to blow Cato a kiss, and Clove began brainstorming various ways to gut her once the Career alliance wasn’t needed anymore. She also couldn’t help but envy how Glimmer managed to look good while playing dress-up too, with that suggestive dress and curled hair.

Cato eyed Glimmer’s figure for a few seconds before one of Caesar’s attendants began going over the rules. Two to three minutes for each “contestant” and the questions could be about anything and everything on Caesar’s mind. Brutus and Enobaria had already done mock interviews with their chosen angles for the two tributes, so they weren’t as worried. Glimmer was first, strutting those legs and acting extremely flirty with both Caesar and the crowd.

Clove couldn’t help but give her head a slight shake as the make believe smiles and fake kisses came out of Glimmer’s mouth over and over. Other than that she betrayed no emotion to the others, whether it be jealousy or contempt or just plain amusement. Glimmer would win over lots of sponsors based on her looks and bombshell personality, that was crystal clear to Clove.

Marvel’s interview went a little bit better, Clove thought, putting an “uplifting” spin to joining the games. He talked about his dad’s hunting and being inspired to participate, as if this were one of those sports that originated in old America, like basketball or football. Still, the crowd loved him and the jokes he threw in with his answers, and he got just as much applause as Glimmer did, if not more.

Cato gave her a quick wink before she was called up next. “… from District 2, another volunteer. Please welcome… Clove!” She barely addressed the cheering crowd, given how they’d cheer anyone who walked across that stage.

“So, I hear you’re younger than the rest of the volunteers in this year’s games?”

“That’s right, Caesar.”

“You don’t feel intimidated, do you?” Caesar asked. “No pressure.” She wasn’t aware of how much Caesar knew about the career academies, but presumably he had to have some idea of why certain districts spitted out a lot more volunteers than the rest.

“If I was scared, do you think I’d really sign up so easily?” To that, Caesar looked across the crowd in a pretend gesture of fear. She kept a small smile on her face, sharp enough to draw blood, as the crowd ooed and awed.

Caesar, satisfied he got the response he was looking for, moved on in the interview. “I’ve heard you’re quite facile with the knife.”

“I’m the best.” She paused to let the message sink in. “I could kill you from clear across the stage.” Caesar pretended to be scared, looking in the other direction as if that area of the stage could provide some protection from a blade hurled at him with deadly precision. He asked a few more “mundane” questions to round out the interview, then sent her off with another round of applause. Again, she didn’t bother giving the crowd much more than a small, devious smile. If Enobaria asked for cute but deadly, she was going to get it.

Cato was up next, pretending to adjust his jacket as he was the next tribute called up to be subjected to a round of questioning for the Capitol’s entertainment. _Complete cockiness_ , he told himself as Caesar began by asking him why he volunteered to go to the games. “I think these are the greatest games ever invented. And I just wanna be here to win it. And I think it’s awesome, it’s something I always wanted to do since I was a kid. And I think everybody who doesn’t want it too is an idiot.”

Caesar let off a laugh, as if he was troubled by what Cato had just said. “I wouldn’t go that far.”

“I’ll go farther than that. _It’s the Hunger Games!_ ” He spread his arms wide, as if questioning anyone’s enjoyment of the games, and he was rewarded with another set of cheers and “woos” from a crowd that was more at home, in his eyes, at a candy factory rather than the audience of a TV show.

Caesar asked a few more questions about Cato’s family and how proud they’d be of him for winning and becoming a Victor. Normally those kinds of questions wouldn’t be asked, but Cato was both from a career district and a member of said district’s leading family, so things wouldn’t go bad for either of them during the talk show. When he was done, Cato joined Clove and the District 1 pair in a special booth. Ten minutes later, Marina joins in. Cato thought she did alright in her interview, mostly focusing on her ax skills and admiration for Johanna Mason.

They largely talked among themselves until Peeta Mallark went up on stage, the very last tribute to be interviewed. Normally the District 12 boys didn’t talk too much, but Peeta was very chatty, almost as if he was one of the careers. But his charisma wasn’t what caught everyone’s attention. No, it was the confession of a crush on Katniss Everdeen.

“It’s an act,” Marvel immediately said. “Another attempt to gain sponsors and tug at heartstrings.”

“He seems genuine to me,” suggested Marina, almost sarcastically.

“If he’s for real, it’s really pathetic,” Glimmer replied with a laugh. “It’s going to be even more fun to kill him tomorrow.”

“Lover Boy,” Clove blurted. “That’s what I’m calling him. Lover Boy.” She liked how it came off of her tongue.

“We go after both of them tomorrow,” Cato said, as if he was the leader of their little pack. Then again, he kind of was. “Make those sponsors regret thinking anyone but us careers can win this thing.”

They all mumbled agreements as Cashmere, Enobaria, and Finnick arrived to pick them up for the night.

* * *

After they finished making love for the night, Cato and Clove fell down on the bed to catch their breath. She was glad to be out of that hairdo and dress, and he was happy to see her relieved and up for more quality time together, especially considering this was the last night before the big day.

“She made an offer to me,” Cato said to Clove, almost whispering in her ear.

“Who?”

“Glimmer. You should’ve heard her over the phone, very flattering. Offered to fuck me tonight if I promised her she’d be the last of the careers I’d target in the arena.”

“And what was your reply?” Her nails were dangerously close to drawing blood from his skin.

“I told her I’d consider.” He smirked. “What I didn’t tell her is that I’d consider it _after_ spending some alone time with just you.”

“And now that we’ve spent that alone time?”

“Well… I’m going to leave her hanging.” They shared a laugh before making out again. He wondered how he, a favorite son from one of his district’s most connected families, fell in love with an orphan girl he met by chance.

Love was too strong a word. It was a fickle thing that could get you killed, the trainers at the academy had told them over and over.

He didn’t care. She was his for the next few days, and no one could say no to him anymore.


	7. Foxes in the Henhouse

Today was it. The thing they’d spent so many hours in gyms, ranges, tracks, and classes for.

The beginning of a new Hunger Games.

Cato and Clove had been given their choice of high quality hunting and sporting gear for teens by Brutus and Enobaria, both of them settling for clothes with black and reddish color schemes to them. It reminded them of the uniforms used in both the academy and the Capitol’s training sessions.

Just before she was scheduled to go up that tube and see what awaited her at the Cornucopia, Clove sat down and allowed Antigonus to make one final adjustment to her look: her hair. The stylist gave her a ponytail for practical reasons, but stylized it with several ball like clumps that she had to admit didn’t look so bad.

“Cute but deadly,” Antigonus muttered. “It shouldn’t flap in your face, and at the same time it sticks out on the screen more than any other ponytail.”

She nodded as the announcement for the tributes to get in their tubes was overheard and tossed her hair behind her head. “Thanks, Antigonus.”

“You’re welcome. Best of luck out there. I can’t bet, but it’s got to be either you or Cato, right?”

“Right.” And if it was down to the two of them, she planned to let him be the one to have the spoils. He had his family reputation to uphold back at home. She didn’t.

Antigonus gave her a pat on the back as she stepped into the circle and was lifted up towards the arena, whatever it was. Brutus said it could’ve been anything from a dense rainforest to a barren desert to the ruins of a war-torn city. Their training at the academy had done mock games based on old arena surroundings.

When she got up to the arena, she saw a metal Cornucopia surrounded by a dense forest, not rainforest or jungle, just a regular forest. As usual, there were an array of goodies laid out for the tributes at the horn of plenty, and Clove spotted a vest with multiple knives attached to it. As the countdown began, she made a mental note to go grab it first, and _then_ find some of the lesser tributes to take down.

Cato’s eyes, by contrast, were on the first available weapon he saw, a machete not too far from his platform. He assumed Marvel, Glimmer, and Marina would do the same. They all had their favorites among weapons, but in the bloodbath anything available would do for killing untrained kids with next to no combat experience. He took up a runner’s position and simply waited for the countdown to end.

The cannon rang.

Clove immediately went for the knives, not looking at the already foreseen carnage and chaos going on around her. She knelt down, did a quick inventory check, and began looking for targets. Marvel and Glimmer had already found weapons and were quickly killing off the nearest possible victims, while Marina had gone for an ax before looking for someone to take out.

Cato grabbed the machete and used it to kill the nearest boy to him, then went straight for the Cornucopia. He was hoping he’d find a sword or two there, those being his preferred tools for combat. As he walked towards it, he pocketed a metal water bottle before slashing against some movement he saw coming towards him. It was only after swiping with deadly force that he saw that it was the District 4 boy, now dead as a doornail. _One less problem_ , he thought to himself as he took a sword from the rack.

Clove’s first target of the day was the District 9 boy, who was about to kill someone else over a backpack. When he fell down with a blade between his ribs, she saw that the person he’d been fighting was Katniss.

_Fire Bitch._

Immediately she grabbed the next knife in her vest and flung it towards the other girl with all her strength. But Katniss was quick enough to put the backpack between them, and the knife went harmlessly into it. Clove considered throwing another knife before deciding against it and ran towards the Cornucopia. There was no telling what was in those woods, from prearranged traps to mutated bears, and better to let Fire Bitch be in harm’s way rather than her.

Next to him, Cato heard a commotion. It was the boy from 6, Jason, fighting with Glimmer. They were going at in some sort of wrestling stance next to a metal crate. He considered letting the two of them fighting it out and just looking for a better tribute to take out, but that was a mistake this early on. They needed the Career pack’s numbers for hunting down the inevitable survivors and stragglers that fled for the woods, those that were taking their chances there as opposed to the foxes in the henhouse that were the Careers.

So he picked up Jason, telling him “told you I’d get you” before slamming him into the nearest crate until he heard neck bones crack. “You’re welcome,” he told Glimmer sardonically before tossing Jason’s body aside.

Glimmer didn’t say anything, no doubt embarrassed that she needed "help" for killing a lesser tribute. Instead she got up, wiped the blood from her forehead, and grabbed the bow and arrows outside, along with a few backpacks the archery set was laid out on. Cato, meanwhile, did the same with the crate that had been Jason’s demise. It was packed with tents, MREs, and even a few first aid kits for emergencies. Not a bad haul at all.

He briefly contemplated his first kills. True, they’d been allowed to euthanize animals and practice kills on condemned criminals at the academy, so taking a life wasn’t new to him. But the tributes here in the arena were actual moving targets, close to his age… forget it. _Remember why you’re here and what you need to do next._ He couldn’t afford to have second thoughts this early in the games.

He saw a wounded girl, dragging herself towards the safety of the trees. Easily getting behind her, he plunged the sword into her back and ended her misery.

A few minutes later, cannons started going off. The slaughter was over – for now.

* * *

“Good job everyone,” Marvel said as they confirmed their kills and examined the bodies for anything useful.

“The kids from 12 got away,” Marina announced, rather disappointed. “What a shame.” No one had seen Lover Boy ever since the first cannon went off, and Katniss of course had escaped being killed by using a backpack as a makeshift shield.

“Whatever, we’ll deal with them later.” Cato found some paper and a pencil, and wrote down who was dead and who was still around:

_Allies: myself, Clove, Glimmer, Marvel, and Marina_

_Confirmed kills: girl 3, boy 4, boy 5, both kids from 6 and 7, boy 8, both kids from 9, girl from 10_

_Still alive: boy 3, girl 5, girl 8, boy 10, both kids from 11 and 12_

Of those still alive, Thresh and the kids from 12 would be the biggest threats. Marina had confirmed that she saw Thresh grab a few supplies and run out for the trees, even killing one of the lesser tributes in the process. Of the kids from 12, they all agreed that Katniss – or rather, Fire Bitch – was the one to go for first. She had a higher score and had a backpack filled with who knew what. Lover Boy had just fled the Cornucopia without anything.

Next, they broke out the materials for their sleeping arrangements. Marvel and Glimmer set up a camping tent on one side of their large supply dump/pyramid for themselves, as did Cato and Clove on the other end. Marina settled on a fancy sleeping bag that was supposed to keep the occupant warm. After that, they arranged the MREs and medicine, putting them out neatly into a pair of piles. Everything else went into the pyramid. Even if it was stuff they didn’t really need or want, it wasn’t going to be made available to the survivors of the bloodbath.

They allowed themselves about forty five minutes of respite, to get used to their new base and let their bodies relax, before deciding to venture into the woods and get a feel for the forest. Cato and Marina went in one direction while Clove was paired with Glimmer, Marvel staying behind to keep watch of all the supplies. They didn’t want anyone stealing them while they were distracted.

Clove wondered if Cato had paired her with Glimmer on purpose, to mess with her. Or maybe he hoped Clove would kill off Glimmer while it was just the two of them. For now, they talked about their kills as they scouted this sector of forest. “I think I got three,” Glimmer said at one point. “The girl from 6, the boy from 5, and the boy from 6 as well.”

“Didn’t Cato finish the boy from 6 off?” Clove asked in reply, having seen that little bit of action out of the corner of her eye back in the bloodbath.

“Please, I had him, your district partner just wanted to be a glory hound.” She took a few more steps, drawing an arrow at the ready. “What about your-”

There was movement. Someone running towards the Cornucopia. “They’re after the supplies,” Glimmer immediately said, and starting running towards that direction, Clove following behind. It wasn’t until they broke past the trees that they realize that it was Lover Boy, hands up in a surrender gesture as Marvel had him cornered.

“Time to die, Lover Boy,” Marvel gloated as he prepared to thrust his spear. Clove silently lamented that she couldn’t be the one to do it.

“Wait, wait!” Peeta was pleading, and had an ace up his sleeve: “I know what direction Katniss went in! Let me in your group and I’ll lead her right to her while she’s sleeping.”

“How do you know we can trust you?” Clove asked viciously, a knife at Peeta’s throat.

“You don’t. But I know her better than anyone else here. I’m good as dead compared to you guys anyways. If I lead you to her, can one of you give me a quick death after her?”

The three careers thought it over. Then they all nodded among themselves. “Fair enough,” Marvel said, giving Lover Boy a spare spear. He assumed Peeta wouldn’t know much about how to use one, as opposed to swinging as sword with his strength or plunging with a dagger.

“You sure turned on your big crush pretty fast,” Clove remarked with a smirk.

“She didn’t return the feeling when I got back to my floor with her last night. Doesn’t matter anymore, I suppose.”

Clove couldn’t tell if he was lying or not. Was it genuine, or part of a ploy to lead the Careers into a trap where Fire Bitch and Lover Boy could handle them more easily? In the end, she didn’t care. Having him in their group made him easier to look after. There was only one of him, and five of them. If he was setting up a trap, they’d deal with it, given how they easily outnumbered him.

Cato and Marina arrived back at camp a few minutes later. Cato pulled out his sword when he saw Peeta casually sitting in a chair, but once he was filled in on why Lover Boy was now hanging out with them, he smirked with contempt and ruffled Peeta’s hair. “You’re taking the lead on hunting for her tonight. Got it?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Good.” He pulled Clove aside for a moment. “I don’t trust him one bit. He’s baiting us somehow.”

“I agree. But he has a point: he knows her better than us, and he’s likely to be pissed off about being in the friendzone, assuming that part’s true. Besides, keeping an eye on him and what he’s doing at all times is better than not knowing what he’s going to do.”

Cato nodded, unable to think of a counterpoint. They’d let Lover Boy tag along for as long as he was useful, starting that sundown when Cato decided they’d go hunting as a group again.

Peeta found what he claimed was Fire Bitch’s snare that night, so they started combing that area of woods for signs of life. In the dark, they didn’t find too much, but when a fire was seen in the distance, they began murmuring to themselves. “You think that might be her?” Cato asked Peeta.

“Probably not. She’s smarter than to make her location obvious.”

“Let’s go see what it is anyways,” Clove suggested. “Just because.” If the fire was indeed Katniss, all the better. If not, someone else was getting the hatchet tonight.

As it turned out, the unlucky person was indeed not Fire Bitch, but the girl from 8, who had no idea that she’d be seen for what could’ve been a mile. She didn’t see the Career group coming until they were right next to her. Cato decided to let Glimmer do the honors, as he technically “stole” one of her kills, aka the boy from 6.

The girl from 8 made a desperate attempt to plead for her life, but it was useless as Glimmer stabbed her easily, sending the other girl’s body to the ground. For good measure, they put out the fire as well. No sense in letting someone like Thresh know anyone was here.

Five minutes later, they were all joking about it, except for Peeta, who silently tagged along. Marvel was asking Clove “Did you see the look on her face?” while Glimmer mocked the dying girl’s pleas, pretending to fall to her knees while Cato and Marina laughed along. Cato allowed himself a few seconds of playing along with Glimmer before realizing something. “Did you guys hear a cannon?”

They argued about it for a minute before Lover Boy, clearly tired of the bickering, volunteered to go finish off the dying girl. “Are you sure we shouldn’t just kill him now?” Glimmer asked Cato after Peeta was out of earshot, the slightest hint of seduction in her voice.

“Nah, he’s our best chance of finding the Fire Girl.” A moment later, Peeta returned, a sweaty look on his face. “Well, was she dead?” Cato asked – or rather demanded.

“No. But she is now.”

“Good.” With that settled, the six of them marched back to their campsite and began preparing for sleep. Marina volunteered for the first watch as Cato and Clove got comfortable in their tent. “Good job today, Clovey.”

“Yeah, you too meathead.” She shut her eyes and began to try falling asleep, trying to forget her failed attempt to kill Katniss, but Cato moved up next to her in a spooning position, his hands suggestively moving about her body. “You _cannot_ be serious right now," she told him, a grin emerging on her face nevertheless.

“Oh I am. Don’t you feel alive right now?” He began kissing along her back and neck, earning him a small moan from her lips.

Clove decided she’d let him have his fun. She was going to be on the next watch anyways, and decided that some more “quality time” with Cato would help keep her senses alert. “If any other others find us like this, I get to kill them. Not you. Understood?”

“Now we’re talking.” He put her on all fours, one hand on her ponytail and the other on her mouth to muffle the moans.

He felt _invigorated_.


	8. Cat and Mouse

The next morning, the six of them ate breakfast together while discussing plans for the day. Whether they’d discover it themselves or the Gamemakers decided to throw in some party favors, the rest of the hideouts would be uncovered and forced to flee elsewhere, somewhere that the Careers could deal with them more easily.

“So, Fire Girl or Thresh first?” Marvel asked. Now that Lover Boy was part of their group (not that he got to participate in this war council), they only had two real threats to worry about.

“Doesn’t matter in the long run,” Cato replied. “Together, they’d pose a serious threat. But separately… we can easily take them down. I’m still wondering how the hell she got an eleven at the scoring.”

“Maybe she’s hiding some talent with a weapon or a special skill,” suggested Glimmer.

“I agree,” said Marina. “Although it won’t save her against all of us at once, right?”

They all nodded in agreement. Even Lover Boy.

“I say we stick as a group again for today’s hunt,” said Clove. “That way, the other tributes won’t be encouraged to try anything stupid.”

“One of us beats one of them anytime,” Marvel countered. “They can’t beat us.”

“Not always,” Marina countered. “My mentor Finnick told me of a time when – wait, did you guys see that?”

The rest of the Career pack shifted their eyes to see the redheaded girl from 5 snatch a random backpack from the supply dump, running off as nimbly as she came. “Looks like we have our first target of the day,” Cato announced as they all got up and started running after the fox faced girl. Even Peeta joined them, although he appeared to be as unexcited as the others were drunk with the thrill of the hunt.

But the girl from 5 clearly planned this little hit and run theft well, and the six of them were soon lost in the woods with no obvious path for tracking their target down. Clove thought it reminded her of one town back in 2, where she could pickpocket or snatch a purse and run away for long enough for anyone on her trail to lose her in minutes. _She can’t fight, but she can harass us. She’s probably waiting for the six of us to turn on each other and worry about fighting then._

“At least she can’t steal everything,” Glimmer pointed out, trying to look on the bright side. “And each time she gets close to us is a risk. Sooner or later one of us will nail her down.”

Clove didn’t say anything, but Cato nodded, trying to keep Glimmer on his good side. “Alright. Let’s go back and see what she took in particular.”

As it turned out, the backpack taken was a spare survival kit, with dried food, matches, a small knife, and water purification tablets in it. At least that was their guess, based on examination of an identical backpack that had been right next to the one that was stolen. “No big loss,” Cato mused, and no one really disagreed. Perhaps Peeta did, but they weren’t asking for his opinion anyways.

Clove was still concerned that someone could harass them like this. What if the fox faced girl made an alliance with Fire Bitch or Thresh? Normally, non Careers hardly allied with anyone outside of their district, but it was possible and had happened before in the past. It was the only smart strategy for the others, to take down trained killers like herself and Cato.

The next few hours, stretching into the mid afternoon, were rather boring. It wasn’t until they were refilling their water canteens did something exciting happen. “There, in the distance,” Glimmer shouted, pointing to a big, burning fire not too far from the river where they were getting a drink and refreshing themselves. Cato and Clove had contemplated bathing here while the others weren’t looking, but decided against it. They’d done academy required weekend exercises at what were once “National Parks” without any running water or electricity, so such luxuries could be temporarily ignored for now.

“Could be a trap,” Marina warned. “Maybe the Gamemakers are luring people.”

“Or it’s to keep someone from moving outside the Arena’s borders,” Cato countered. “I say we go over there and have a look.”

The group moved as one along the riverside, joking and chatting among themselves, although Peeta continued to be last in line, no one bothering to include him in their conversation. _He still feels guilty for selling out his crush_ , Cato though to himself. _How sad, to sell out a friend for a few more days of life in the arena._

Glimmer was telling Cato about a time when one of the students at the District 1 academy was expelled for having a fling with one of their trainers. He wondered if it was a subtle way of trying to get in his pants, and was laughing at that unfortunate girl’s plight when Marvel started tapping his shoulder and pointing at a low point in the lake/river. “There she is! There she is!”

As if one, the five Careers had new life renewed into them. There, in the water, probably trying to recover from the manufactured fire, was Katniss herself. Looks like the Girl on Fire wasn’t fireproof after all.

Immediately, all of them started whooping and shouting, no doubt believing this to be the highlight of their day, if not the whole games. “This’ll be fun!” Marvel cheered. “Finally found her!”

“I call dibs on killing her,” Cato announced as boots trekked and leaped across the rocks where they could cross the river and still maintain their momentum. To her credit, Fire Girl got out of the water and started heading for the nearest forest to find a hiding spot. But wouldn’t help her, not with all six of them in hot pursuit.

But Katniss had put enough distance between herself and the Career pack to the point where she could start climbing a tree for escape, figuring the only way left for survival was up. “Way to go, Girl on Fire!” Cato yelled as he slowed down by the tree trunk, the first of them to make it there.

“That’s not gonna help you, Katniss,” Glimmer taunted as they gathered around the tree, and soon the rest of them were gloating and provoking away, confident that they had her for good now. “Where are you going?” Clove asked mockingly as Katniss found a sturdy branch high up and began perching herself on it.

Cato drew out his sword, climbing the tree with one hand. He knew he should’ve used both hands to scale the tree, but didn’t feel he’d be challenged. To him, this was no different than the hours spent at the academy’s rock climbing station, with the plastic rocks swapped for bitter bark.

“How’s everything with you?” Katniss asked, who spoke with some sort of internal physical pain, but enough energy to add a spark of bitter sarcasm to her worlds.

“Well enough, Fire Bitch,” Cato let out as he continued to move up the tree. His non-sword hand lost it’s grip once, but he recovered and kept going, encouraged by the rest of the alliance below – except Peeta, of course.

“Kill her, Cato!” Clove shouted from below, not minding if he was the one to finish her and not herself.

“Go, go!” exclaimed Marvel.

“Gut her!” yelled out Marina.

Peeta just stood behind them, spear in one hand and looking at them like they were crazed lunatics.

“I’m comin’ for ya,” Cato warned as he grabbed a small, thick branch above him – the last thing he’d need to do before getting to Fire Bitch’s branch. But the smaller branch snapped when he held onto it, causing him to lose his footing and fall all the way to the ground on his ass.

Next to try taking Katniss down was Glimmer, pulling out and arrow and shooting it up towards the top. To her credit, the arrow came very close to getting the girl from 12. But it ultimately didn’t, and went harmlessly past her among the leaves. Clove couldn’t help but close her eyes and shake her head slightly. What was supposed to be an easy kill was turning into a frustrating game of cat and mouse.

His temper kicking in again, Cato grabbed the bow and the next arrow, still wanting the kill for himself one way or another. “ _Get her_ ,” Glimmer growled as Cato’s arrow ended up missing as well. Katniss was simply too high up for the arrows to reach her accurately.

“Try throwing a knife,” Marina suggested to Clove.

“If an arrow can’t get up there, my knife definitely won’t,” Clove replied, the frustration growing inside of her as well. Knives had a certain range for throwing, and although Katniss _might_ have been within that range, Clove wasn’t risking giving Fire Bitch another weapon.

“Maybe you should throw the sword,” Katniss taunted back, in her tired yet resistant tone. “Or climb up again, the air’s much better up here.”

The Careers looked up, bewildered. Cato was about to shout something, something to scare Katniss, when Peeta spoke up for once. “Just wait her out.”

Everyone turned to him, as if he reappeared out of thin air.

“It’s not like she’s going anywhere,” Peeta elaborated. “Wait till the morning when she tries to get food. Just kill her then.”

The gears in Cato’s head began turning. Was this part of their long term trap, or was Lover Boy trying to extend his own life by another night? Hard to tell with how neutral his tone of voice was, what could’ve been a winning poker face. After a few seconds, Cato decided they’d do things the hard way – and keep Lover Boy on a tight leash. “Alright. Someone make a fire.” They’d camp out here for the night, in case she tried to come down in the darkness.

Marina pulled out a lighter from her backpack and found some dead twigs to start the fire for tonight, while Cato ordered Marvel and Clove to go back to the supply dump and get enough food for the night. Gimmer was left at the tree to watch Katniss, and Lover Boy as well. No way was Cato leaving the kids from 12 together without someone watching them. Meanwhile, he walked off to a smaller tree and started cutting it apart in his rage. It wasn’t a tribute or a slab of beef, but it was target practice and decent catharsis.

Marvel stopped about halfway back to camp, to set up a quick, rudimentary trap. It was meant as insurance while they were camped out by the tree waiting for Fire Bitch to come down. “So, you and Cato, huh,” Marvel mused to himself as he set a net in waiting for an unlucky tribute to spring it.

“What are you talking about?” Clove asked him, pretending to be unknowing of what he was saying.

“It’s obvious to me. The way he looks at you sometimes. The way you look back. I knew a number of couples back home who hid their relationships like that. That trainer Glimmer was talking about just now? He did the exact same sort of thing.”

“Do you really want a knife in your back right now?” Clove snarled, pulling out one to slice him with.

“Of course not. Just know that Glimmer flirts with everyone. Even me, back in the day, although it was obvious she wanted me to help her cheat in science class. She’s doing it for the alliance, nothing more. So don’t worry about her until we’re the only ones left.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“To keep all of us working together, for now. In the past too many Careers turned on each other too soon, letting someone else win instead.”

Clove wondered if this was a District 1 ploy. To keep the others in the alliance looking over each other’s backs and struggling with emotions, while they moved in at the right moment. Maybe Glimmer and Marvel were a secret couple, just like her and Cato. It was possible. They _had_ taken a tent together, after all.

“And don’t worry about me either. My lips are sealed.” He finished the trap, pressed a finger against his lips as if zipping them up, and moved on if nothing had happened. Clove supposed there really wasn’t much else to talk about but themselves in the arena, where death could come at any second and the will to live superseded all else.

Whatever thoughts she had about killing Marvel for even bothering to let her know he knew about her and Cato were soon forgotten when they saw a boy messing with one of the left behind platforms near their supplies. She recognized him: the boy from 3, one of the stragglers. _Time for an easy kill._

However, the other boy saw them running at him and yelled, “Wait! I’ll blow up the mines if you throw that knife at me!”

That was enough to stop them temporarily. “You’re bluffing,” Marvel said.

“No I’m not. These mines are based on a design found in my district.” He got an idea. “Let me in your group and I’ll set them around your supplies for you guys. Keep anyone else from trying to get them while you’re gone.”

It was like Peeta, Clove thought to herself. Another desperate attempt to stay alive while buying time to think a way to kill the Careers. She knew one of the Victors from 3, Beetee, had won his games by setting an electrical trap that killed six other tributes at once, some of them Careers. No doubt he’d told the kid in front of them to try the same with whatever mechanical or electronic device he could find in the arena, in this case the mines used to keep the tributes from jumping off the platform before the first cannon rang at the beginning of the games.

“I say we kill him,” Marvel said.

But Clove was inclined to think the District 3 boy wasn’t lying. And the mines could take out the girl from 5 for them. “I think he’s telling the truth. He wouldn’t have risked raiding our camp if he didn’t have a backup plan. Isn’t that right, whatever your name is?”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re right. And I’m Orson, by the way.”

“Alright Orson.” Clove put her knife back in her belt. “Get these mines up and running by nightfall. Make the area around the tents a safe path. And grab a spear, you’ll be on watch duty until we come back.”

“Come back?”

“Don’t ask stupid questions and do as you’re told.” Clove left without another word, followed by Marvel, both of them silent and on a mission to kill.

* * *

As before, the Careers took shifts watching the horizon at night, making sure Katniss didn’t slip past them while they slept. The only one allowed to get a full night’s sleep was Peeta, and that was because he couldn’t be trusted to be the only one awake.

Clove’s shift was late in the night, and she soon became bored. She would’ve messed around with Cato had they had the privacy of their tent, like last night. But they didn’t, and had to pretend to not be involved with each other for now. So she instead kept herself awake by tossing knives at a lizard that was eating some bugs. Pets weren’t allowed at the academy and they’d euthanized countless animals that were going to be slaughtered anyways, so she felt no remorse about killing the small green and brown animal.

She used her jacket for a pillow to try to get a nap in when it was Glimmer’s turn to take over for watch duty. Not thirty minutes later, however, Glimmer got herself next to Cato and inadvertently stirred him. “Mmm, need something?” His voice was slurred, and he was no doubt not excited to have been awoken, having taken the first watch earlier that night.

“Couldn’t resist. You’re a big teddy bear. You’ll forgive me if I use you as a pillow for one night, right? And besides…” Her hand trailed down his chest to between his legs. “I know just how to make it up to you.”

“Later,” was his one word reply. No way he was screwing her where they could all hear it, let alone Clove. Glimmer made a humph sound before getting comfortable and napping alongside him.

Unknown to them, Clove was still awake and could hear the whole thing. She tried not to let it bother her though, knowing that was Glimmer being Glimmer and they could sort it out in a few days.

But fate would have a much different end for the girl from District 1, one that involved genetically enhanced wasps on a branch far above the Careers as they slept soundly and dreamed of being the one to kill her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure how in character/realistic the Marvel/Clove conversation is, but I thought it would be fun to add in and write. Not sure if the arena cameras can pick up what they're saying, if at all. I forgot that part. So it's written as if they can't be easily heard by the viewers in the Capitol or elsewhere in Panem.


	9. Cracks

A loud thud woke Clove up from her nap. Her eyes snapped open, and within a split second she knew it was a life or death situation.

There were wasps. Everywhere. A big nest of them was sitting where their fire had been, and it was split open, the bugs angrily buzzing about and trying to sting all of them to death.

Immediately she began shrieking, trying to use her jacket to bat as many of them away as possible, before Marvel yelled “To the lake!” She followed him, doing her best to keep the murderous insects away from her, although they were starting to get to her, based the extremely painful stings on her arms. Cato was close behind, swinging his sword as if that could kill the wasps, and Marina was behind him, staggering but moving. Glimmer, meanwhile, seemed to have gotten the worst of it, with far more bugs around her than anyone else.

Clove jumped into the water, hoping that it would put enough distance from the nest and drown any of the pests that made it that far. After holding her breath for about a minute, she got up, climbed onto land again, and followed Marvel to camp, where Orson was cooking an egg for breakfast.

“Medicine, NOW!” Marvel roared at the District 3 boy, who dropped his breakfast to start scrambling in the nearest container for any disinfectant, insect repellent, or morphling that could help with the large lumps growing on the arms of the two careers that made it back to camp first.

Clove felt the world spinning, her head extremely weak and wanting to roll over. But she had enough sense to realize who was there and who wasn’t. “Where’s Cato?” she asked weakly to no one in particular, stumbling about while Orson kept looking for any sort of medication. “Cato, Cato, where the hell did you go…”

* * *

Cato stumbled about in the forest, the tracker jacker stings making him disoriented and weaker than usual. He still swung his sword at anything that was a threat, real or perceived. “Where the fuck is she,” he kept muttering to himself over and over. “Where the fuck is she, where the fuck is she.”

He knew that bitch from 12 had to have been behind the wasps somehow. Maybe the nest was high up in the trees and she broke the branch to distract them all, possibly kill some of them, and give her time to come down from the tree and make an escape. _Smart of her, but she just got lucky. We’ll see how lucky she is at the end of a sharp blade._

He continued to wonder the forest, questioning whether he should just head back to camp or keep trying to find that bitch when his decision was made up for him. In the distance, he could see Lover Boy, yelling something to Katniss, probably to run or something. He fucking knew it; Peeta was dumping them for his so-called crush at the first hint of trouble.

Not that he’d live to enjoy it much longer.

Even with one eye swollen, Cato was able to make a close enough swing at Lover Boy to catch him off guard. The first few swipes were misses, but one eventually cut Peeta in the leg. Cato was about to finish him off when he tripped and fell on a fallen branch, one of his arm scrapping against a boulder. Doing so caused one of the lumps on his forearm to bust, and it hurt more than anything Cato had experienced in his life. Some sort of green puss poured out as Cato got up and tried to get back to camp, satisfied Peeta wouldn’t last more than a few days on his own with a wound that was exposed down to the bone.

It took all of his remaining energy to get back to the Cornucopia, and he passed by the body of Marina on his way. She was not a pretty sight, and it appeared to him she had actually been very close to survival, her hand falling over the ledge that led to the pool of water. Cato jumped in it, hoping it would numb the scorching pain on his arm and eye somehow and keep any wasps straggling from bothering him anymore.

Less than thirty seconds later, he was up and out of the water, tapping into the last of his energy to get back to base. He could faintly hear Clove screaming his name as he collapsed, the world going to dark around him.

* * *

After what seemed like an infinite amount of time, Cato woke up in his tent, bandaged up and wrapped in some of the blankets from their supply dump. The busted sore on his arm had healed to a degree, but was still painful to move and touch. He noticed an injection wound right next to the sore: someone had given him a shot of something for the pain, the swelling, or both.

He was going to try to sit up, but Clove entered the tent and easily forced him down in his weakened state, despite him normally towering over her. “Lay back down, dummy. You’ll need a lot more time than that to recover from tracker jacker stings.”

So that wasp nest was indeed tracker jackers. Even if it was a normal nest, it would’ve been an effective trick by Katniss to take them all out. Mutated murder hornets only made the whole ordeal even worse. “Those damn bugs from biology class?”

“Yep. I only found out because our mentors managed to get sponsors to give us proper treatment.” She held up a pair of syringes, both of them used up. In her other hand was a note from Brutus and Enobaria: _that surprise attack could’ve gotten both of you killed. Lay low for a few days and keep your eyes open. B and E_

“This is anti-venom for the jackers,” Clove explained. “It’s basically watered down morphling mixed with other chemicals, but nowhere near as addictive as the actual stuff. We each need two doses of it every few hours, and even then the lumps will take time to heal. That bitch in the tree got very lucky, that’s all.”

He nodded, agreeing with that. “Who else got out, besides us?”

“Just Marvel. Marina collapsed before making it to the lake, and Glimmer had the majority of the bugs on her when the nest broke.” She silently lamented not being able to be the one to kill the blonde girl. Katniss had stolen that from her, and she wanted to make her pay for that just as much as almost killing her, if not more.

“Ugh… this hurts. How long was I out for?”

“Several hours. Most of the day at least. It’s early evening by now. Here, get some food.” She tossed him a bag of beef jerky and a water canteen. “I thought you would’ve died. That was very stupid of you not to immediately run back to camp.”

Cato cocked a brow. “I saw him. Fucking Lover Boy was helping Fire Bitch the whole damn time. He was telling her to run before I cut him in the leg.”

“Still. We could get him later. The main thing is keeping your ass alive long enough to see it through.”

“But you’d like that, wouldn’t you? One less person to worry about killing to become a Victor. I think you’d prefer not to have to be the one to do it, would you?”

She raised a hand to slap him, but pulled it back and put more food around him. “I don’t want to talk about that, meathead. I don’t… fuck, now you have me thinking about how one of us is going to have to kill the other soon.”

“Alright, we won’t talk about it. Aren’t you dealing with all those stings as well? Why aren’t you resting too?”

“I got the medicine first, dumbass. You spent all your energy chasing Lover Boy through half the forest, remember?”

“Right, right.”

* * *

It took nearly a day and a half for the three Careers to recover from the tracker jacker stings. Luckily for them, no one else came trying to steal their stuff. Not even the redhead from 5, who either had enough food from that one backpack or knew how to hunt for prey somehow. It was almost boring, after several days of hunting and butchering, but the pain came in waves, even with the proper medication, and it was enough to keep the three of them lying down for most of the day.

It wasn’t until the next after noon that Cato was up and walking again. The dizziness and hallucinations were finally going away. He could’ve sworn that Clove’s body was between his legs half the time, only for him to realize he was daydreaming. What exactly did they put in that tracker jacker venom to make you see your wildest dreams and bizarre fantasies?

He waved away the last hallucination and got up out of the tent, ordering Marvel to set up more of those crude traps. The mines would keep their supplies safe, but sooner or later the stragglers among the other tributes would come closer. They were all basically the same: disguised to match the surroundings of the forest, activated by stepping on the wrong stone or branch, and trap the victim long enough to be finished off – if they made it that far, with such dangers as sharpened branches in some of them.

Once those were done, they began to get bored again, so they ended up playing games of tic-tack-toe and checkers using rocks, just to pass the time. Even that only lasted an hour or so, and the repetitiveness began getting to them. At Cato’s insistence, the three remaining Careers traveled as one to patrol the forest around them, Orson left behind to maintain the mines and look out for any other threats.

Marvel chose a path that allowed them to review each of the traps set up earlier and inspect them, making small modifications as necessary. What was supposed to be a simple walk ended up being taxing on all of them, but they had to build up their strength again and not let their guard down. 

They were leaving the third trap of the trail when they heard the sounds of a kid struggling behind them. Cato, Clove, and Marvel turned around to see the boy from District 10 caught in the trap, several wooden stakes in him. It wouldn’t be long now if they didn’t put him down, like the owner of a pet performing euthanasia at the end of their companion’s life.

“Let him die on his own, or put him out of his misery?” Cato asked.

“Doesn’t matter to me,” replied Marvel, considering this his kill regardless of the outcome.

“I’ll do it,” said Clove. Though the academy taught them to alternate between relishing the hunt and knowing when to go for an instant kill, she was inclined towards the latter today. Torturing Lover Boy or Fire Girl was one thing. This kid, on the other hand, simply happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Nothing personal.

Besides, they didn’t want to waste too much time. Others could be out there, watching and waiting for the right moment.

So Clove took out one of her knives and plunged it into the boy with the bad leg, granting him a quicker death than most. A minute later, the cannon rang to confirm the kill.

“Anything else?” Clove asked sarcastically, to no one in particular, as they began the trek back to their temporary home.

* * *

Cato and Clove spent the night spooned up against each other. They didn’t have the energy for much else, frankly. Which Cato thought was a shame, but they needed the stamina for the rest of the games. Sex would have to wait.

* * *

The next day, the four of them decided to wait it out in camp. Save their energy for when someone inevitably came to their supplies, hungry and desperate, and watch them either get blown sky high or stabbed by one of the Careers.

Clove sharpened her knives, Orson messed around with the detonator to the mines (a small box shaped piece of plastic that had multiple switches and buttons), while Marvel and Cato resorted to another game of checkers. Chess had been covered at the academy, as a way of keeping their minds sharp for puzzles and strategic thinking, but Cato had never given it much thought until now, when he would’ve preferred that game to the more simple checkers.

Marvel was the better checkers player, having won two games so far, and they decided on a short break from the monotony of the games. It had barely been a minute, the two of them sitting in lawn chairs, when Marvel spotted the smoke. “Guys, look, look!”

All of them saw it: smoke in the distance, as if it was someone making a fire. Clove wondered to herself who was stupid enough to do that in the daytime. She considered it to be a trap, but there were three of them, four if you counted Orson, and likely the others still hadn’t formed any sort of alliance yet. They’d have to take their chances investigating.

“Should Orson stay here on watch duty?” Marvel asked Cato and Clove.

“He’s coming,” was Cato’s blunt reply. “We can use the numbers, and no one’s touching the supplies with the mines.” He tossed Orson a spear and the four of them set off in the forest, running to where the first trail of smoke was coming from.

It took them about twenty minutes to find it, but find it they did. And it was an empty nest, either hastily abandoned or set up as a decoy to keep the Careers away from somewhere else. “There’s another one,” Clove said while pointing out a hole in the leaves, where they could see more smoke.

“I’ll bet it’s another decoy,” Marvel grumbled.

“Only one way to find out.” Cato took the lead again, the others trailing behind in a steady jog. A few minutes later, they reached the second fire. Again, it was a dead end, probably a distraction.

“I wonder which one of them set these up,” Clove mused to the group. “One of the kids from 11? Or Fire Girl, maybe?”

“Whoever did it is probably trying to use the time to get something from the supply dump,” suggested Marvel. “But they’ll never get within five feet without setting off-”

There was the sound of a massive explosion, that all of them could hear. Cato swore it fucked up his eardrums.

That could only be one thing: the mines.


	10. Two Victors?

Cato was the first to arrive at the wreckage of what had once been the supply dump. Crates and containers scattered about, other items burning or reduced to ashes. Their tents were torn down by the blast wave, and most of the weapons not on their persons were damaged or broken entirely.

He’d ran back hoping they’d killed someone with the mines, but the actual truth was far worse. Someone had done something to get their whole camp messed up bad, no doubt trying to even the odds against a pack of trained killers.

Then it struck him: those mines weren’t placed to destroy their camp and supplies, no? They only should’ve been placed to protect, not destroy as if suicide. Orson must’ve been planning to blow us up eventually, after we killed the others for him. No surprise there, but he needs to be taught a lesson. He’s outlived his usefulness anyways. Cato turned to the boy from 3. “What the fuck just happened?”

“I-I don’t know-”

Cato easily batted away the spear in those shaking hands, then grabbed the boy's head and gave it a hard twist in frustration. Just like that, Orson was dead.

But Cato’s rage didn’t end there. He began taking it out on everything – the empty crates, the broken weapons, even the Cornucopia by throwing debris at it. He was shouting at the top of his lungs, banging a dented hard plastic box into the metal wall of the Cornucopia over and over, as if that would bring the supplies back.

Marvel and Clove ignored it at first, deciding their energy was better spent salvaging anything of use in the wreckage. They managed to find some blankets, maybe two days worth of food at best, two pairs of night goggles, and empty canteens for water. They’d need to go back to the lake and replenish their water supply, assuming the Gamemakers hadn’t poisoned it or worse.

“Only one cannon,” Marvel mentioned. “I’ll bet it was for Orson. That means whoever did this is alive somewhere. Fuck, we were played for fools.”

 _The only fools in this arena have just earned a painful death_ , thought Clove. _And they're not us. Not yet._

Cato was still tearing things apart when Marvel and Clove decided they’d salvaged all they could from the rubble. Clove began to turn towards her district partner, when Marvel shook his head. “That might get you killed right now.”

“But you’d want that, no?” Maybe the Career alliance was about to be broken up for good.

“Just saying. I wouldn’t touch him with a ten foot spear if I were you. But you know him better than I do.” He shook his head again and looked in a burnt box for anything of use.

Clove approached Cato slowly, trying not to give him a reason to keep being angry. “Hey, we need to find what we can in-”

“I fucking knew it!” He was so close to her that his spittle was getting on her face. She had just finished wiping it off when he revealed something in his hand: a silver arrow, one that had once belonged to Glimmer. “Fire Bitch. She’s the only one who could’ve gotten Glimmer’s weapons.”

“How?” asked Clove. "How'd she blow it up?"

“I don’t know. All I know is that she fucking did this somehow and she’s going to fucking pay for it!” He picked up another crate and tossed it against the Cornucopia with a roar.

Clove resisted the urge to shake her head. “Look, we’ll get her, and make her suffer while doing it. But we need to gather what we can and keep moving. She or Thresh will smell blood in the water if they saw you like this, getting upset over the supplies. To them, it looks pathetic and weak.”

“But-”

“Enough buts. We’ll get through this and one of us will still win. Let’s go find something in the explosion that bitch _couldn’t_ take from us, no?”

Cato took a minute to take some deep breaths. In the past few years, the Careers always had the supplies for the whole game. Always. To have it taken away from them just like that – to him, it was so fucking unfair. Why did Katniss Everdeen have to volunteer anyways? She was only delaying the inevitable now.

Eventually, he calmed down and set to seeing if any of the trash still held anything of value. Not for long though. Someone could’ve planned an ambush.

* * *

Later, they set themselves up with the surviving supplies near the lake/river. They needed the water, given how all the water bottles they had had been blown up, and with three of them still alive it was doable for an alternate camping site.

The meager food rations they’d gathered wouldn’t last them for long, when counting for three hungry mouths. Marvel volunteered to go out and collect some animals for their supper while Clove and Cato were left at the stream. Cato paced about, looking like he was going to kill someone very soon if something didn’t happen.

“Still pissed about the mines?” Clove asked him.

“Of course I’m fucking pissed about that. It was fucking bullshit and it never should’ve happened.” He stomped his foot in the ground hard.

“So am I, Cato. So am I. But what’s done is done and all we can do is kill the rest of those bastards.” She turned around, her feet dangling off the ledge. “You need to take your mind off of it.”

“And how exactly should I do that?”

“Got any tall tales or fun stories?” She knew most of them, having been one of his closest friends at the academy. But recounting that would pass the time more easily than just a regular watch.

He got up and joined her, side by side. “Remember the time that Drusilla thought she had you bested in the hatchet competition a year ago?”

She remembered that one well, and they started talking about it. While Clove’s specialty was throwing knives, she also knew how to throw other projectile weapons, and the trainers that year decided she’d enter the semi-casual hatchet competition. It worked largely the same as the yearly knife contests, except she had to throw the small axes as accurately as she would her little blades, on a regular basis.

Thus half the time that year that would’ve normally been spent on knife practice was instead spent on learning axes and throwing the small ones as bullseyes. She struggled at first, as throwing an ax was entirely different than throwing a dagger. Drusilla, by comparison, had chosen to specialize in hatchets since the age of eleven, and could cut people up with them by the age of thirteen.

The other girl hadn’t yet learned to throw them, however, and had taken a crash course in that the same year Clove was. Most of the facility and trainers thought that Drusilla would rank higher than Clove in the competition, given her familiarity with the weapon. It was like comparing Clove and Drusilla at knives.

Clove tried her best however, and could hit reasonably enough targets when the day came, getting a few good targets. She missed a few, however, and didn’t have much faith in herself when it was Drusilla’s turn to go. She was sure that Drusilla had a much higher score that day – until the scoresheet was released, and both of them were tied for third place.

“How’s that possible?” Drusilla had asked, shocked that anyone could come close to besting her in her chosen weapon.

“Must be luck,” Clove had replied with a smirk. “Or talent. Who knows these days.”

It was only the presence of a few Peacekeeper trainers that kept the two girls from getting into a catfight that day. It was all Clove could talk about with Cato the walk home. Although she didn’t win (the winner was a girl named Ricarda going to Peacekeeper officer school after graduation from the academy), she could take pride in proving herself a match for Drusilla, even if she never touched an ax again.

“I don’t think there were any hatchets in this year’s Cornucopia,” Clove said, after the two of them had finished going over the whole tale.

“I don’t think there’s been a victor that won with hatchets anyways,” Cato replied. “Mason from 7 won her games with a regular ax, and only because she played dead for several days-”

The cannon rang, catching them off guard. “Who do you think that one was?” Clove asked.

“No way of knowing till nightfall. With luck, Lover Boy. Maybe his wounds finally got to him.”

She nodded, but then a few minutes later a second cannon went off. “Those have got to be connected,” she surmised.

Cato shrugged his shoulders and went to setting up their sleeping quarters for the night. Without the tents, they’d be relying on a few blankets and the remains of one of the sleeping bags. A suitable fire location was discovered and created, as they doubted anyone else would ambush them with one person on guard all the time.

Cato thought about the remaining competition. Lover Boy was good as dead. He’d bet anything that at least one of the cannons was for him. Too high a chance, even if there was a second cannon right after the first. Maybe Thresh had gotten to him?

Speaking of Thresh, where was that ox of a boy? He’d not been seen ever since the first day, running towards the only field without trees in the area. Earlier, the Career pack had decided that they could hunt him later, given his reluctance to fight. Maybe Thresh’s goal was to outwait everyone else and pick off whoever was left after a week or so.

That was definitely the plan of the girl from 5 as well. She didn’t have Thresh’s raw strength but a knack for surviving and staying hidden until absolutely necessary. She hadn’t been spotted since that one raid, but Cato could’ve sworn she was digging through the rubbish of the wrecked supplies after the Careers had finished salvaging what they could. He wasn’t too worried about her unless she found a weapon, however.

That night, he rationed what was left of their food, trying to make it stretch as long as possible. He’d just finished putting out Marvel’s percentage in a pile when the night’s fallen tributes showed up in the sky. And sure enough, Marvel was one of them.

“Guess that explains why he never came back this evening,” Cato muttered. He and Clove had been wondering where the boy from 1 had gone. Clove almost believed he’d decided to ditch the Careers from 2 and head out on his own, with so few tributes remaining, but the truth was much different.

The second fallen tribute was Rue, the girl from 11 who’d somehow gotten a score of 7. “Think their deaths might be related?”

“Possible,” replied Clove. “I’ll bet she was working with Katniss. Fire Girl had a soft spot for her during training. Maybe Marvel ran into them and decided he could kill two birds with one stone.”

“Or one spear.” That earned a laugh from Clove. Did Katniss really have the arrows from Glimmer? Did she know any archery? They hadn’t seen her do too much at training, but what they did see were bullseyes. Maybe that wash how she got the eleven? No, one skill alone couldn’t cut it.

As before, they slept in shifts. Cato went first. Sometimes, when he was sure she was fast asleep, he’d take off the night vision goggles and give her a quick kiss on the forehead or cheek.

* * *

The next day was spent hunting, but animals rather than tributes. Even with Marvel’s extra rations, they’d be stretching their food by a lot of they didn’t have anything else to go with it.

The morning was used for trying their luck in the trees. Between the two of them they found a couple of rabbits and some non-poisonous berries to supplement it. Cato had never eaten rabbit before, but Clove assured him it wasn’t deadly, and did most of the work of skinning and chopping up the small animals with her array of knives.

Cato tried fishing instead. That couldn’t be too hard using a sword instead of a trident, no? It ended up being harder than it looked, and he got maybe three fish in an hour’s worth of standing by the stream and stabbing anything that looked like it was moving.

Much of this looked like it was going to be eaten raw, or at least without any real flavor. The fire they had was kept burning for most of the day to ensure they could cook their newfound meat supply to a degree, but Cato found himself longing for the MREs. He’d hated the times at the academy they gave him and the other students nothing but MRE crap to eat, but now he’d do anything to get one or two for the coming days.

“So it’s just us now,” he said to Clove that evening, picking out fish bones from his teeth. “We’re the only careers left. I wonder which of us goes out first.”

“We’re not going out on their terms. The only person who gets to kill _me_ would be _you_.”

“I know I told you that earlier, but… it just feels bad, you know. Killing your district partner. Marina said that it was looked down upon by most of the other districts.”

“Screw that. If I have to go out, I’d rather it be done by someone who I know and care about rather than that Fire Girl or that Thresh kid. Both of them would probably make it painful for me.”

“As if you wouldn’t do the same to them?” asked Cato with a grin.

“Maybe.” She grinned back at him. “If I could get away with it, sure. Give everyone a good show. The girl from 12 especially, she’s been on my nerves. God, I hated those tracker jacker stings.”

“Maybe I should let you have her-”

They were interrupted by a loud voice that seemed to encompass the entire arena. Claudius Templesmith was making an announcement to those who were left:

“Attention tributes. Attention. The regulations requiring a single victor has been suspended. From now on, two victors may be crowned if both originate from the same district. This will be the only announcement.” 

They had to take a moment to take it in. Each of them were thinking the same thing: _we can both go home. We can both be Victors._

All the talk about one of them having to put down the other - irrelevant now.

“They did that for 12,” Cato said dismissively. “They’re trying to raise their hopes up-”

He was interrupted by the feeling of Clove grabbing onto him and making out with a passion he hadn’t felt from her in days. He responded in kind, enjoying it before breaking off and yelling, “What was that for?”

“Dummy. One of us doesn’t have to die anymore. Both of us will go home as Victors. That’s worth celebrating.” Her arms were tight around him, gripping suggestively. “Turns out both of us volunteering the same year was a good thing after all.”

“We got lucky. Like I said, that rule change was to appease the sponsors for 12.”

“And we can still celebrate that it benefits us as well.” She eyed something behind her. “That bush. Now.”

“Clove, are you sure that’ll prevent the Capital clowns from getting a free show?”

“Fuck the Capitol. You’re all I want tonight.” She got up off of him, and walked to the bush. It was high enough to where they could lay down, and provided semi-privacy. “You coming, meathead?”

He shook his head and smiled. “Oh, alright Clovey. Just for you.” Then he picked her up, and threw her into the clearing, him following not far behind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No idea how much the hatchet competition story sounds when reading it. It's kind of filler and I don't know if it's any good, but I do have plans to use Drusilla (and some of their other classmates from the academy) later down the road.


	11. The Feast

The next day, there was a Feast announcement. In past games, this was done at a time when the audience was getting bored and the Gamemakers wanted the surviving tributes drawn to the center of the map to duke it out over a bundle of goodies. Claudius said something about every bag containing something the tribute desperately needed.

“What do we need?” Clove asked Cato. They were ok on their food supply, and had their signature weapons on them.

“No idea. They’re probably just saying that for ratings. Make the audience tune in and watch the fights.”

“Doesn’t really matter. It’s our chance to take out as much of the competition as we can in one go.”

When the time came, they watched the Cornucopia from the treeline. There were four bags, each labeled with which district it was supposed to go to. An open field with an obvious temptation – the perfect place for a showdown.

“So who wants to go grab it?” Cato asked. “We both don’t need to go to get the pack, although that would be safer. One of us should patrol the treeline for the others and take them out if we get the chance.”

“I’ll run and get it,” said Clove. “I’m smaller and faster than you.”

“Scared you can’t hold your own in a fight?”

She elbowed him in the gut. “Shut up. I’ll lead them right to you if I have to do that. But I won’t. Just watch me.”

“Fine. I’ll let you go up there and be a glory hound just this once. What do you think is in the other packs, by the way? I think 12 has medicine for Lover Boy. How he hasn’t died from an infection yet is beyond me.”

“The ones for 5 and 11 probably have food. Maybe a weapon of use for 5 as well. Thresh can kill anyone with his bare hands.”

She was going to say more when they spotted the girl from 5 dart out of the horn of plenty, grabbing her pack and running like hell out of there. The redhead was headed towards the opposite side of the field, so he’d need some time to track her down.

“Go,” he told her, already letting her have her wish. “Grab the bag and cut up whoever gets in your way. I’ll be on the other side.”

“Go get her,” Clove said to him before giving Cato a quick kiss and darting to the back side of the Cornucopia. She went around the corner and was going to run for the bag when a familiar face appeared in her view, wielding a bow and quiver.

Fire Girl.

Immediately she tossed a knife at Katniss, and while it it didn’t hit anywhere lethal, it slashed across the other girl’s face, making her lose her balance and drop the bag with the number 12 on it. Clove began running towards her, intent on finishing the job.

To her amazement, Katniss was able to get on one knee, grab the bow, and shoot off an arrow, which barely missed its target. Katniss also had time to let off a second arrow, which _did_ reach her target – in the shoulder. The arrowhead got snagged somewhere between Clove’s jacket and skin, and while it hurt like a motherfucker, it was survivable. Careers were trained to take a little pain.

 _That explains how she got the eleven_ , Clove thought to herself as she threw all her weight against the girl from 12. _Glimmer would’ve never been able to pull off a feat like that._ Grabbing onto Katniss, Clove rolled her around in the grass and dirt before getting on top, pulling out one of the bigger knives to carve up Fire Bitch.

Katniss had enough strength left to resist, however, and used her arms to block and deflect the blows, even scratching her fingers in Clove’s face. Both of them were growling and yelling, knowing it was life or death on the line in a way that disease and disaster couldn’t compare with. After another roll in the grass, Clove finally found a way to keep the other girl down: headbutt her. Fire Girl never saw it coming, and was temporarily unable to resist anything. Clove took advantage of that, using her knees to pin each of Katniss’ arms in place, unable to prevent the inevitable anymore.

 _Cato likes it when I’m on top of him,_ Clove thought grimly to herself before yanking out the arrow in her jacket with a slight grunt of pain. “Where’s Lover Boy?”

She gave it a second for it to sink in, hoping to demoralize Katniss. Nothing like Fire Bitch being brought low, finally. “Oh, I see, you were going to help him? Well, that’s _sweet_. Too bad he’s nearly dead. Cato knows where he cut him. If that’s medicine in the backpack, he’ll never get it.”

Katniss made what Clove considered a pathetic attempt to break the hold, in vain of course.

“I promised Cato that if he let me have you, I’d give the audience a good show. Now you can’t help Lover Boy, just like you couldn’t help your little friend. What was her name, Rue?”

That got another rise out of Katniss, as expected. The sadism that had been conditioned into Clove by hours of training and mental conditioning was showing. She was enjoying gloating over the girl who’d caused her and Cato so much grief, and forced Fire Girl down before continuing. “Yeah, well we killed her. And now,” she paused to take out a smaller blade, one that could put a permanent smile on a victim’s face, “we’re going to kill you too.”

She began to do the deed – and then found herself forced up and slammed against the metal of the Cornucopia, a brutal hand around her neck. It was Thresh. Where he’d come from, she had no idea, but things had taken a complete 180. Thresh was one of the few tributes she didn’t want to have to face one on one.

“You kill her?” Thresh asked angrily. Clove’s heart sank, realizing that Thresh was probably the only person in the arena that cared for that little curly haired girl more than Katniss. They’d come from the same district, after all. Maybe they knew each other back home. She shook her head, desperately.

Clearly, he didn’t believe her. “I heard you! Say her name!” Thresh looked like he was out for blood.

 _Fuck, this is it. You were so stupid to monologue, Clove. Now your life depends on whether Cato can run back to you in time._ “CATO! CATO!”

But there was all the chance in the world she was already dead. Dead because she couldn’t resist gloating. She’d be presented to future academy students as an example of what _not_ to do in the games. That would be quite the ending and legacy for a girl who’d started out in the dumps of 2, and only lucked out into the academy because Cato took pity that one day, no?

And while she’d never say it, she was scared. Death wasn’t so scary when living on the streets. But when actually faced with it like this… she was terrified.

_C’mon Cato, get your ass over here now. And if you’re not fast enough, you’d better fucking win this thing._

* * *

While Clove and Katniss had been fighting, Cato had silently stalked the perimeter of the forest edge. He was headed in the redhead’s direction, intent on finding out where she went and maybe catching Fire Girl or Thresh off guard if possible. Easier to get the jump on them than fighting them by way of running into them.

He was about to circle back around, deciding the fox girl got herself lost and wasn’t worth it anymore, when he saw, out of the corner of his eye, someone pick up Clove and toss her against the Cornucopia. It was Thresh, and he was going to kill her.

He was already running towards them when she started screaming out his name.

“Clove!” He ran as fast as he could, silently praying he got there before he just decided to snap her neck and be done with it.

Thresh prepared to smash Clove against the Cornucopia, but he realized the new threat right behind him. Without warning, he slammed Clove’s face into the wall as hard as he could and dropped her, before giving off a primal shout and ran towards Cato, hoping his raw brute force would force the Career tribute to the ground before him.

Seeing Clove near death only enraged Cato even more than he already was. He knew he should’ve never let her run out for the bag alone. Yelling at the top of his lungs, he collided against Thresh, both of them going down hard. The spear Cato had in his hands was knocked far away.

Cato got up first and was going to punch Thresh’s face in, but the other boy put up his forearm to block it, kneeing Cato in the gut as he did. This sent Cato back a little bit and by the time he got up, so was Thresh.

“You should’ve joined the alliance,” Cato snarled.

“I’ve got no regrets.” Then Thresh charged into Cato again, the two of them wrestling for a moment before Thresh was able to swing himself around so that Cato was being thrown and tossed a bit. But soon Cato was on him, trying to put Thresh’s neck in a chokehold.

Thresh wasn’t a weakling, however, and he ran backwards, trying to slam Cato against the Cornucopia. The metal horn of plenty was proving to be the best weapon of them all. Cato could feel his insides getting a beating from one, then two, then three slams, but through it all he saw something: one of Clove’s dropped knives. If he could just reach it, he could end this fight in an instant, given how Thresh’s sickle had also been tossed aside in the fight.

So he jumped off of Thresh, and pretended to be scuttling away on all fours, as if trying to escape the fight and get the hell out of there. As expected, Thresh began walking towards him, the look on his face wanting to get this over with and deal with the Careers once and for all.

Cato scrambled over to the knife and waited for Thresh to make his move. When the other boy’s arms were trying to pick up Cato, he turned, stabbing the small blade into Thresh’s arm, who was forced to drop him with a yelp of pain.

_Thanks, Clove._

Thresh was still on his feet, even with the slash to his wrist, and he wouldn’t be easy to put down. But now Cato had a weapon. Thresh didn’t. Between the wound to the wrist and the lack of a weapon, the fight had shifted against’ Thresh’s favor. The odds had shifted, like they always did.

It took a couple more minutes of beating down Thresh, but with the knife he was able to do it more easily. The other boy’s raw strength could match Cato’s marital arts training, but the weapon gave him the edge. Whenever Thresh tried to punch, Cato would block with one arm and slash with the other. A kick was met with a punch. And when Thresh tried to headbutt, Cato stopped it with his arm, grinning at the thrill of finally beating him.

“Not bad,” he told Thresh, half congratulatory, half mockery. “But it was never going to be good enough.” He was seeing red, thinking about how close Thresh got to killing Clove. Or maybe he had already. That slam against the Cornucopia was a nasty hit.

So he forced the knife into Thresh’s chest, right at the heart. The male tribute from 11 stood for a moment, then went down, first on his knees and then on his back. While dying, his eyes never left Cato, filled with hate and determining not to give the Career the satisfaction of a plea of mercy or any sign of fear.

Cato also knelt down to make sure the deed was done, smirked with bared teeth, then stood up, leaving the knife in Thresh’s chest to finish him off. Only then did his attention turn to Clove. She was barely conscious, breathing softly if at all, her face a bloody mess from a broken nose. There was a large gash on her forehead from where one of the cornered edges of the Cornucopia had cut her, and she was bleeding out from a couple of other areas as well.

 _Fuckfuckfuck._ He tried checking for vital signs. They were there, but faint. “Fuck, don’t go out on me Clove! Stay with me, stay with me.” Then he briefly looked around. Fire Girl was gone, no doubt taking advantage of the fight between him and Thresh to make herself disappear.

He felt a tear come out of his eye, and he brushed it away quickly. He wondered if Brutus, Enobaria, and the rest of the folks watching from the academy’s screens in 2 were smirking in amusement to see him upset over potentially losing his district partner, or hoping she’d make it through, knowing it would increase 2’s over all chances with the new rule. Knowing academy life and traditions, it was probably the former. Weakness was to be despised.

_Fuck all of them._

He was still thinking about how his classmates were probably making fun of him, when Clove started coughing, spitting out blood. “Fuck… what the hell just happened?” She sounded extremely weak, and ready to pass out at a minute’s notice.

“Hey now, don’t move. You’re banged up, little Clover, but you’re going to be alright. Just lie still and I’ll get you somewhere saver.”

“Cato… where’s Thresh?”

“Dead. You’re really lucky I was able to get to you in time, because if I wasn’t… fuck, I’m not going to lose you. Not on my watch.”

He wanted to say more, how she was extremely stupid to not look around while playing with her food, for gloating far longer than she needed to, but that would be saved for later, when she was rested and healed up with food and painkillers from a stream of sponsors.

So for now, he put her in a fireman’s carry, grabbed the bags for 2 and 11, and brought her back to their makeshift camp by the river. Katniss had gone in the opposite direction, and Thresh was no longer a threat, so he felt they were safe for now. By the time they got to camp, she was passed out again, and he laid her down gently and silently begged for Brutus and Enobaria to send in the supplies.

_Just fucking get the medicine, you fucking sponsors. I don’t give a damn if you think I’m weak. I’m not losing her, and if she dies there’s going to be hell to pay._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried to give Thresh something of a "better" death, given how I like him, even if he has to die to keep our main characters alive.


	12. The Mutts

It was nighttime when Clove finally regained consciousness for good. Everything hurt, stung, or was on fire inside her. He head felt especially bad, and when she put a hand on it, she felt some sort of stitches on one side.

“Wouldn’t touch that if I were you,” was Cato’s all too familiar voice.

It was only then when she realized they were back at their small camp by the lake. She was wrapped up in the blankets and right next to a fire, no doubt Cato’s doing. He was eating something from an MRE. “God, I feel like shit.”

“You should. Thresh did a real number on you. You’re lucky a sponsor sent a first aid kit for cleaning you up.” He held up the plastic container, then pointed to a gash on her shoulder that had been wrapped with gauze. “Very stupid of you to lollygag around with the Fire Girl when you had her.”

“You’re in no position to judge. You would’ve done the same. Cutting her up painfully, to get it out of your system.”

“At least I would’ve checked my surroundings before doing so. You didn’t.”

“Yes I did!” But her voice was weak, and it expended a lot of energy to try to yell at all. “I had her, meathead. Bad fucking luck.”

“Yeah, I was wondering if you jinxed it after the two victors rule got announced.” Cato finished his side dish and tossed away the trash without another word. “Thresh’s bag had several MREs in it. He must’ve run out of food for them to give it to him.”

“And us? What did we have?”

“Armor.” He motioned to a pair of Peacekeeper riot suits, minus the helmets. These were customized to fit the two of them, however, and painted pitch black. They were sleek, compact, and lightweight. “No way Fire Girl’s arrows can go through that. Not exactly something we desperately needed, but it’s the thought that counts, right? Some sponsor must be betting big on us for them to give us body armor.”

“That’s nice,” she said weakly. “Sorry.”

“For?”

“Taking my time with Fire Girl. You seemed pissed about it just now.”

“Because you could’ve died.” He moved to her and took her face in his hands. “I’m not losing you, even if you make it hard sometimes. Got it?”

“Yeah, I do.” Then she thought of something. “Kiss me. Like you mean it.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously. If the kids from 12 want to play the lovers angle, we should do the same. It’s not like we have to hide it anymore, and it might get more sponsors as well.”

“But we have freaking body armor. There’s not much more they could send us besides a pair of assault rifles.”

“Can’t hurt our chances. So go ahead, meathead. Prove to me you didn’t want to lose me today.” She coughed, this time with a bit of blood. He got out of her way just in time to make sure he didn’t get any blood stains on him – although his clothes hadn’t been washed in days out of necessity.

He wiped her mouth with a spare rag, the proceeded to kiss her. There was the faint taste of blood among the saliva. He didn’t care too much, though. Did the audience think him bloodthirsty? Fine by him.

She moaned into his mouth for a moment before slowly letting their lips break. “Cuddle with me. Get a full night’s sleep for once.”

“But the others-”

“The others are recovering as well. 5 isn’t a fighter and the kids from 12 are dealing with Lover Boy’s bad leg. They won’t be out tonight.” A few days ago, not taking watch shifts would’ve been stupid. But between the herd being thinned out and Clove needing the rest, it struck her as a good idea to get one last rest before some Gamemaker threat forced them all back to the Cornucopia again.

He sighed. He was tired. Tired of fighting others, tired of arguing with Clove. “Alright. Just this once.” He got comfortable with her, kissing her neck before letting his arms wrap around her, and tried to get some of that blessed sleep.

* * *

Both of them woke that morning within minutes of each other. Silently, they ate their breakfast and mused about what would come next.

“They’ll have something to drive everyone to the center again,” Cato repeated. “They’re tired of fox girl and Fire Girl and Lover Boy all holed up with no fighting going on. Whether it’s mutts or more of those fireballs, they’re going to lure everyone back to where we are again.”

“Duh. But how long till that happens?”

“Long enough to heal you. Try that armor on. Brutus had a note saying it should fit perfectly yet still be movable.”

She did, and sure enough the riot gear fit like a glove, at the same time not weighing her down heavily like she anticipated. It must’ve cost whichever sponsor sent it a lot of money, but that person was no doubt betting big on the District 2 tributes winning it all this year.

“Try shooting through that, Fire Girl,” Clove muttered, tapping on the flat black breastplate. There was no way an arrow was penetrating that, she thought to herself. “I wonder if we’ll keep these after we win.”

“I think so. Brutus’ spears from his games are in a display back at the academy. I think they might do the same with our stuff.” He twirled his sword, thinking about how the weapon would look back home, a proud reminder of who had won the 74th Annual Hunger Games. Alongside a pair of Clove’s knives, of course.

It wasn’t until the afternoon until anything interesting happened. The cannon fired once, and they were left to guess who it was. “The girl from 5,” Clove suggested. “It it was Lover Boy or Fire Girl, there’d be a second cannon.”

“How’d she die?”

“No idea, doesn’t matter. It’s down to us and 12, and the sponsors must be really hedging their bets now.” A final showdown was in order soon, probably by nightfall. “Want to set up by the Cornucopia?” Cato suggested. “Give us an advantage when they’re drawn back over here.”

“Sounds good to me.” The horn was the only readily identifiable place on the map. By now she could walk to an extent, but he helped her most of the way, and then made a second trip to grab the last of their supplies. It was highly likely they wouldn’t be needed much longer than a day by now, but it was worth taking them with them.

Inside the Cornucopia, they rested from the sun and laid out their weapons, preparing them for the inevitable clash. Cato had just a single sword left, but it was a trusty weapon. Clove had half a dozen knives, all able to be stashed in her jacket and easily accessible at a second’s notice.

“Keep your eyes open,” Clove said to Cato as the sun set for the evening, soon enveloping the entire arena in the nighttime darkness. Rested from last night, the two of them were more alert than usual, and figured they could nap once they were dual Victors, the first in Panem’s history.

Then the first one came out.

It was some combination of a wolf and a large bulldog, ugly and aggressive, and at least the size of Cato. Barking and yapping, it charged for him out of the treeline, seemingly out of nowhere. He readied his sword, bracing himself for the blow.

The large mutated animal jumped at him, but he swung first, sending the muttation to the side, if not off balance. It came for him again, but this time he slashed it in the face, and stabbed a few more times until the corpse became absolutely still. He examined it for a moment after catching his breath. Blond fur, green eyes, the vague pattern of the number 1 on its back…

Glimmer. This muttation was supposed to be Glimmer, however it was made in the lab.

“Is that…” asked Clove, obviously having the same idea.

“I think so. I’ll be there’s twenty others that look like-”

He froze, seeing something. There were multiple pairs of eyes in the treeline, along with some barking and growling. The Glimmer mutt was an outlier, and the rest of them were about to strike, catching the District 2 tributes like a deer in the headlights.

“Up,” said Cato as the mutts started moving towards them. “Roof of the Cornucopia. Unless you have a better idea.”

“Up,” agreed Clove, running to where the jump up to the top was the lowest and easiest. “Care to help life a girl up?”

Cato grinned and picked up Clove quickly, getting her on the roof as the mutts kept closing in. She struggled to pull his weight up alongside her, though, and he had to kick at least one of the mutts down. He thought it looked like the fox girl, with red fur all about it.

“Fucking pull!” He yelled at her while the Thresh mutt kept trying to bite off one of his boots. Their armor didn’t cover their ankles and feet.

“I’m trying!” She pulled once, then twice, and then three times. After that, a fourth time finally did the trick, and with all her might she got Cato up just to where he was out of the reach of the ugly mutts with features of the fallen tributes.

They had just a few seconds to catch their breath and pull out their weapons, when they saw Peeta and Katniss emerging on the other end of the Cornucopia’s roof. One way or another, things were going to be settled once and for all. Clove made the first move, tossing a knife towards Lover Boy, one that she didn’t mind losing if it fell over the edge. She had several more where that came from.

Cato, meanwhile, took on Fire Girl, not wanting Clove to take any more risks with her again. The body armor deflected off the arrows Katniss sent his way, and he was soon struggling to force her down to the ground, where the mutts could finish her for him. Peeta, although distracted by Clove and a knife to his face, was able to kick at Cato enough to where he let her go, and had to fight normally, one on one.

But he’d been training for this his whole life, against people with proper experience. This stupid girl in front of him? She had nothing. She _was_ nothing. Nothing more than an annoying obstacle to the ultimate crown and victory.

She swung the bow as a weapon, no doubt a desperate attempt to offset the advantage he had with his body armor making the arrows useless. They could’ve gone in his hands or feet, where there wasn’t any armor, but she didn’t have time to see that and went for the first option available. Cato struggled with her for the bow for a moment. In the corner of his eye he saw Clove and Peeta doing the same with a knife. Clove was the better fighter, but Peeta had some raw strength to him, similar to Thresh the other day.

Then Cato was able to twist Katniss’ wrist, getting a yelp out of her before shifting the bow to where he had the girl on fire in a headlock with it. It was quite effective in keeping her from squirming about as much as she usually did, and he had a free hand to hold her down lower, on her chest.

A few seconds later, Clove got the upper hand against Peeta. She dropped her knife and let him have it, only to blur with a second knife, which slashed across his chest. It caused enough pain to where she could get around and hold him at knifepoint, a blade to his throat.

They finally had twelve where they wanted them, defeated and ready to die. The question was, who would go first? And how?

“Got your friend,” Clove taunted to Katniss, drawing a drop of blood from Peeta’s throat. “Can’t help each other, now or ever.”

“Who should we kill first?” asked Cato. “They’re both dead anyways.”

“Kill me first,” Peeta said, a hint of bravery to his voice. “So I don’t have to watch Katniss die.”

“That’s so sweet of you,” Clove said mockingly, drawing more blood from Peeta’s throat. “You really did have a hard-on for her this whole time. But why should you have all the fun? Cato, go ahead and kill the Fire Bitch.”

“With pleasure.” He snapped Katniss’ neck with the bow locking it in place, before tossing first the bow and Katniss down below, to where the mutts were waiting. They eagerly began to sink their teeth into their former prey turned chew toy.

Peeta gave out a bloodcurdling scream of agony, which Clove could only smirk at. She enjoyed watching Lover Boy cry out in pain for Fire Girl. She had to hold him in place so the next part of their little show could go smoothly.  
  
But things would not go smoothly. “They’ll get you too,” Peeta said through gritted teeth.

“What are you talking about?” Clove asked annoyingly.

“The Gamemakers. They’ll revoke the rule and make you kill each other. That rule change was for me, not you. They’ll love watching you and Cato fight each other for their own sick amusement.”

“Highly doubt that, Lover Boy. We’re from District 2. The Capitol loves us. You’re just stalling for time.”

“I’m dead anyways. But I’ll go down knowing at least one of you is going with me to the grave.”

“Would you shut up already?” growled Cato. “Just kill him already, Clove. One more kill.”

“Let him talk. It means nothing.” The moonlight shone on them, and only them, and Clove wondered if that was a Gamemaker trick to make the television show easier. “Any last words, Lover Boy?”

“Just kill me. They’ll kill you too, they’ll kill you too.”

“Ugh, you couldn’t say something different. Shame.” She cut his throat, and then tossed him to the dogs as well. She then realized they hadn’t heard a cannon for either Katniss or Peeta, but then again it was effectively over, the Games. They were the two Victors.

They’d be going home as the first dual winners ever in the Hunger Games.

“We did it,” exclaimed Cato as he ran to Clove, picking her up in a tight embrace before setting her down to kiss her. She kiss him back with just as much need, moaning loudly into his mouth. If the spotlight wasn’t on them, she’d go find some dark corner and fuck him then and there.

The kiss seemed to last an eternity. They had all the time in the world, having just won the 74th annual Hunger Games. But then the voice of Claudius Templesmith came on again, and it wasn’t to congratulate their victory:

“Attention. Attention, tributes. There’s been a slight... rule change. The previous revision allowing for two victors from the same district has been revoked. Only one victor may be crowned. Good luck, and may the odds be ever in your favor.”

Peeta may have been desperately looking for a way to get posthumous revenge, and maybe the Gamemakers had caught on to him and his final words.

Though none of them realized it, not Clove, Cato, Claudius Templesmith, Seneca Crane, or even President Coriolanus Snow, that decision to revoke the two victors rule would set off a chain of events that would set Panem on fire once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some people who write Cato/Clove fics make the deaths of Peeta and Katniss really sadistic and drawn out, but I'm inclined to do something a little differently.


	13. The Victors

Cato and Clove had blank looks on their faces. The two victors rule had been revoked. All of their hopes and dreams and eagerness to start something together after all of this… revoked as well.

Clove just stared at the moon, the artificial light putting all of the focus on them.

Cato yelled and sank to his knees, screaming “WHAT THE FUCK!!!” while banging his fists against the Cornucopia’s roof, over and over until they started hurting. After that, he tried kicking it.

Normally, they’d have killed each other for this chance. But that was before they knew their feelings and the thrill of being Panem’s first dual victors. Why did that have to be taken away from them? Hadn’t District 2 done enough to earn the respect and favors from President Snow and the Capitol?

Cato continued to bawl out and rage at everyone and everything he could think of, shaking his fists to the sky, when he heard a knife being slid over to him on the metal roof.

“You do it,” Clove said with a shrug.

“What?” Cato asked, confused. She wasn’t asking him to kill her, was she? At this point in time? “No. Hell no!”

“Lover Boy was right. They were never going to let more than one of us walk away with a crown. You should be the one to do it. Just make it fast and painless.”

“Fuck that, I’m not doing it!”

“They’ll send the mutts back or something, and they’ll take their time too. You have your family to go back to. Your dad, your brothers, they’ll all be proud of you. I wouldn’t have anyone to really enjoy the moment with. Maybe if you weren’t here…”

“FUCK!!” He began pacing again, nose snorting, breathing heavily. He was desperate, desperate to force the fucking Gamemakers to take it back. Get out of here with Clove by his side. Like those fuckers promised.

An idea came to him. It was crazy, but they were already seen as crazy by most. “Do you remember the history lesson about Antony and Cleopatra? How they failed to win control of Rome?”

“Yeah, what about it?”

“Do you remember how they died?”

Clove racked her brain to think about it. History had never been her favorite school subject. “Suicide?”

“Exactly.” He twirled the knife Clove had given him. “What do you think the Gamemakers would prefer: be forced to accept two victors, or have none this year?”

“Two.” She grinned at how clever Cato’s idea was. Insane and an enormous gamble, but it was worth it. Neither of them had the heart to kill each other anymore after being promised they could win together if they took out the competition. They cared about each other too much to fight each other now, even for their lives.

It was simple, the more she thought about it. They knew how to kill with deadly precision. If they stabbed each other in the heart at the same time, the Capitol doctors wouldn’t be able to save either of them to prop up as a lone victor.

Of course, there was the very real chance that the Gamemakers would just let them die and use their corpses to serve as a warning to future Tributes – but where was the fun in that? Seneca Crane, Plutarch Heavensbee, and the rest of those idiots had a crowd to entertain. And no victors was a good way to spoil the entire games.

Cato held Clove close to him, his sword a hair away from piercing her heart. At the same time, she put her biggest knife at his heart. They’d push their blades together, and die in each other’s embrace. At least the Gamemakers couldn’t take that from them.

“Sure you want to go through with this?” Asked Clove. “It’d be easier for you to just off me.”

“And let you die when you didn’t have to anymore? I like these chances.” He pushed his sword a little bit closer on her, just enough to draw blood. “Together?”

She smiled back at him and kissed him on the lips. “Together. We do it together.” She had her knife in place. Secretly, she hoped the Gamemakers would take their bait. It was funny, tributes about to call the shots on the games rather than the other way around.

“On the count of three,” Cato said quietly before screaming at the top of his lungs, to get attention. “You take that rule back! Or we’ll do it! Don’t think we can kill some more, huh? How about we kill each other? Let’s see if that changes your mind.”

A few seconds passed. No doubt Crane’s staff was running in circles about what to do. “One.”

The blades drew a drop of blood each.

But as if yet, still nothing. “Two…”

Still nothing. Maybe they would let them die. At least they’d die together. “Thr-”

“Stop! Stop!” That was Claudius Templesmith, clearly panicking. “Ladies and gentlemen, may I present the winners of the 74th Annual Hunger Games: Cato Richardson and Clove Blackwell!”

Again, they had to take a few seconds to absorb it. Tributes enforcing their will on the Gamemakers? Unheard of. Even if that was the plan all along. But they’d done the impossible. They tossed the weapons aside and went back to kissing and hugging each other until the hovercraft arrived to take them out of the arena.

* * *

Clove was the first to wake up, after what must’ve been at least a day or so. She remembered both of them being given shots to knock them out “as a safety precaution” and after that, just blurs. A surgery team working on her facial scar. Antigonus and Junia looking over her, nodding at somethings and shaking their heads at others. And dreams. Lots of dreams. Mostly of her and Cato back in district 2, training together, talking with each other, sleeping together. Lots of Cato.

When she woke up for good, she saw Brutus and Enobaria sitting by her side, looking happy that she was back to reality. “Welcome back,” Brutus offered with a smile. “Congrats on the victory. Took some balls for you and Cato to pull that off at the end.”

“Ugh, I feel like shit.”

“Well, you shouldn’t anymore,” said Enobaria. “They should’ve cleaned you up after taking you out of the arena. Take a look for yourself.”

She handed Clove a mirror and she saw that the scars on her face were gone, as if they'd never been there. Other small scars from other the years had also been removed and replaced with pristine pale skin. At least they let her keep her freckles, she thought grimly to herself, and didn’t dye her hair any which way.

Marcia came into the room, still with her orange attire. “Ah, finally! Good to see you all prim and proper. Lovely what they’ve done to you, wouldn’t you say?”

Clove was considering telling her to just shut the fuck up, but instead nodded, not wanting to cause a scene in front of the mentors. “What’s next?”

“They’re going to do the highlights and coronation with you and Cato,” Enobaria said. “That’s when you’ll get to see him again. Antigonus and Junia have something whipped up for you and I think you’ll like it.” She led Clove to the next room where Junia was waiting, white face paint and a fresh coat of lipstick expertly applied.

“Try this on for size,” Junia said. It was a sleek purple dress, a dark shade of the color, and ending somewhere among the calf muscles. “In ancient times, purple was the most expensive color, meant only for Emperors. Or victors, in our case. I think it suits you perfectly with the modifications the team did with your skin.”

She supposed the female stylist was right and tried on the dress. She liked it more than she thought she would. Not anything Capitol fancy, but nice enough for one last talk with Caesar Flickerman. “Good enough for me. Now, when are we going on air with the Capitol?”

“Couple of hours,” Enobaria said. “Now, I need a word with you.”

She took Clove to a more private room, and frowned once the door was shut behind them. “You didn’t hear this from me, but higher ups in President Snow’s inner circle are dropping hints that what you and Cato did really pissed him off somehow. I know, I know, Snow cares little about the games, but for whatever reason, your stunt with Cato angered him. No one else cares much, but he does.”

Clove’s heart started beating rapidly. Were she and Cato in danger? Would there be further consequences? “Why? Because we refused to kill each other for him?”

“I don’t know. No ones blames you and him for what you did, but just try to keep up the cute couple image at the interview. Nothing against the Capitol or Gamemakers, just that you and Cato were so in love that you couldn’t bear to kill each other.”

“That shouldn’t be hard to pull off.”

“Most of the focus will be on Cato, since he was the one screaming his head off and you offered to let him kill you, but just keep everything I said in mind. Brutus already filled in Cato as well, for your information. We need both of you in on this to pull it off.”

“But why? We’re from District 2. We’re Capitol favorites and we’ve won the most out of all the districts.”

Enobaria sighed. “I wish I knew, I really do. But Snow probably fears what would happen if tributes from 2 were allowed to get away with defying the games. Better safe than sorry, right?”

They left it at that. The rest of the hour, Clove spent to herself however she could to pass the boredom. She couldn’t wait to see Cato, even if it was on the Capitol’s terms. They were dual Victors and no one could take that from them. Not even the Gamemakers and President Snow, no matter how hard they’d tried.

When the time came, she was waiting on a metal circle as the prep teams were showcased to a roaring crowd, followed in swift order by Antigonus, Junia, Enobaria, and Brutus. The stylists gave curt nods and bows, while Brutus and Enobaria roared in equal enthusiasm, pumping up the crowd with bared teeth and raised fists.

After that, it was their turn. Her platform rose up to a prearranged section of the floor, leading her to Caesar’s talk show set. But also there was Cato. The stubble from the past few days was gone (though she liked the feeling of it on her skin), his hair was trimmed, and he was in a darker gray outfit than the one he wore to the previous interviews. His first reaction was to walk towards Clove and hug her, lips crashing into hers in a way that was guaranteed to drive the crowd wild.

After a minute of making out, they slumped onto a couch to watch the highlights of the games. The bloodbath, where they and the other Careers killed off half the competition in under thirty minutes. Peeta smooth talking his way into the alliance. Chasing Katniss, and getting ambushed by the tracker jackers, and Glimmer’s horrific death. Throughout the highlights, Cato couldn’t help but notice how much they fit in clips of him and Clove giving the telltale glances at each other.

Like they were trying to “prove” they’d been in love all along.

Then there was the supply dump being destroyed, and they learned that Katniss had used an arrow to tear open a bag of apples and set off the motion sensors on the mines. Then there was Rue’s death (which Katniss indeed wept over), Marvel’s death, the announcement of the two victors rule. They showed Kaniss searching for Peeta, but the real applause came from Clove’s sudden decision to kiss Cato then and there, although thankfully they cut out the implied sex that came after that.

Then there was the feast. She winced watching herself taunt Fire Girl, knowing Thresh was about to take her by surprise. But of course, they all knew Cato would save the day and nurse her back to health. The crowd made a number of “aww” sounds when he was carrying her and telling her he wasn’t going to lose her.

After that, there was the mutt attack and the final battle with Fire Girl and Lover Boy. Curiously, they eliminated Peeta’s last words, the ones where he said the Gamemakers would revoke the rule. Same went for Cato’s screaming at the world. The screens cut to just Cato and Clove about to stab each other before Templesmith panicked and reinstated the two victors rule.

Then Caesar Flickerman decided to ask a few questions, in an impromptu interview. Normally they’d do this the day after, but the unique circumstances simply couldn’t be ignored for television ratings. “Congratulations to both of you. How are you holding up?”

“I’m fine,” said Clove. “I’m just glad to be here, alive and well.”

“I think she speaks for both of us,” Cato replied, holding her hand and squeezing it. He knew that would draw another reaction from the audience.

Caesar went over some of the more memorable moments from the games, getting the perspective of the victors for all to hear. Then he asked, “How did you feel when they revoked the rule for two victors? What prompted you to take such drastic action to get out alive, both of you?”

Normally Cato would’ve gave a response with the theme of _fuck the Capitol, I wanted that rule brought back._ But Brutus had already given Cato “the talk” about how to reply to this inevitable inquiry, whether it come from Caesar, Snow, or academy folks back home. “It’s to protect both of your asses,” he’d told Cato, referring to both him and Clove.

“I was mad,” Cato began. “We’d been working together to both get out alive, and now I’d have to kill her? After realizing how I felt for her? I was just so mad. I thought, if I couldn’t win without her, neither of us would.” He left it at that, not wanting to say something explicitly anti-Capitol.

“And when did you realize you felt for Clove the way you did?”

“Bit by bit, during the pre-game activities. Being placed in life-or-death situations can do weird things to you. I’m sure both of us can attest to that.” He wrapped an arm around Clove and squeezed her shoulder lightly.

“Oh yes,” Clove replied, giving off that grin that could kill. Or rather, had.

“So you could say that the new rule was a very lucky coincidence, given how the two of you felt beforehand.”

“Very,” replied Cato.

Caesar finished off with a few questions about what they’d do after the Games (both of them agreed to a long, well deserved break at 2) and then President Snow arrived to crown them. What appeared to be a single crown turned out to be a pair, and Snow placed them atop their heads. But both Cato and Clove noticed a stern, disapproving look on his face. Like a schoolteacher who’d found out that his favorite student had been caught cheating on a test or smoking drugs at lunch.

They were concerned, but thought nothing of it at the time.

* * *

A few weeks later, President Snow met with two men. One was middle aged and portly, the other short, broad chested, and bearded.

“Thank you both for coming here,” Snow greeted them as they sat in his office. “So, Plutarch, what say you about the Head Gamemaker position?”

The portly man raised his eyebrows. “Was Seneca Crane fired?”

“Let’s just say he stopped breathing.” Snow gave it a moment to settle in, and grinned. “I’m offering you a promotion. Are you going to take it?”

“Yes, of course. But I get the idea that I’m not just here to become the next Head Gamemaker.”

“No, you’re not.” Snow turned to the bearded man. “Balbus, would you mind sharing with Plutarch what you shared with me?”

Balbus gave off a small smile and slid over a report. The son of one of Coriolanus’ late friends, Balbus Creed was Minister of Internal Affairs – a fancy way of saying he ran Panem’s spies. His men kept tabs on both the outside world and unrest in the districts, with a small army of informants and interrogators. The report was labeled “New Unrest” and featured Districts 9, 11, and 12.

Plutarch saw the name “Gale Hawthorne” mentioned as the main culprit in 12, and read a few pages before looking up to Snow. “Is this what I think it is?”

“Oh yes, and so much more. But it relates to why I had to dispose of Crane. Care to elaborate?”

Plutarch Heavensbee thought for a moment. “Disobedience, inspired by actions of the tributes in the last games. The ringleaders in 12 were inspired by Katniss and Peeta’s-”

Snow raised a hand, cutting him off. “More than that. Think deeper.”

Plutarch took another moment to get what Snow wanted him to realize. “Cato Richardson and Clove Blackwell. They broke the rules to undo the revoking of the two victors rule. If kids from District 2, the district most loyal to the Capitol, could disobey, what’s there to stop districts like 11 and 12, which aren’t so favored?”

Both Snow and Creed had a conspiratorial look on their face.

“We need to deal with them,” said Snow. “And in a way that doesn’t turn these two into martyrs for future malcontents.” He played the clip of Cato and Clove about to kill themselves, trying to deny the audience the fight to the death by just killing each other instead.

“That’s where you come in, Plutarch,” replied Balbus, sipping wine. “I hear Gamemakers are quite skilled in innovative ways of dealing with problems.”

Plutarch frowned at first. But then he smiled. “Very. Very much so.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little bit of a longer wait time, but a little bit of a longer chapter. Hope you enjoy.


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